r-w^'i- 



he Livable House 
Its Qarden 



By Ruth Dean 

Landscape Architect 




Class S b^^^ 
Book. . 33 ^ 
CopigM}^? 



CBEaRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




APPROPRIATE PLANTING lOR A 
GARDEN DOORWAY 

House of Mr. James C. Breese, at Southampton, Long Island. 
McKim, Meade and White, Architects 



%^^^^^^^^^^^^-^^-^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^k^^^^^M 



THE LIVABLE HOUSE 



Its Qarden 

hy Ruth Dean 

L^a fid scape Ai^chitect 



h c i n g V o L u M E 2 of 
the L i V a hie House .V c r i c s 
e (1 1 1 (■ d h \ -A V »i ci r 6' /J/ h // /■ r // 






^ 









Moffat \'ard am/ Coinpatix 

T20 West J2nd Street, Ne\\- "^'ork 

M C MXV I I 






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^^^^^^^^^^^^^-^^^l^^^l^l^^^^^^^^^ 







Copyright, 1917, by 
MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY 

Published May, 1917 






m 3^ 19^7 

©C!.A4(52863 






To M. W. 



Introductory 
^^'r%^p^j7 very real but undirected interest which we in 

^ / I V rT 

"^, 1 ^ America have alwavs taken in the development of our 
^^'^^'^ grounds has of late become more purposeful and (al- 
though the word is much misused) efficient. We are 
beginning to realize the simple fact that a lot of flower beds does 
not necessarilv make a garden, and we as a mass have only very 
lately discovered that the collection and planting of very beauti- 
ful specimens of all sorts of trees may detract from, rather than 
beautify, our grounds. Landscape architecture has, like all arts, 
a certain scientific side, and although its principles are perhaps 
not as fixed and definite as, let us say, the principles of mechani- 
cal engineering, it, nevertheless, has basic and fundamental laws 
which have been discovered through a series of experiments, and 
landscape work which is not in accordance with these laws will 
inevitably fall short of the desired result. 

We are far too likely to regard the house and its grounds as 
being two separate and unrelated problems, employing one ex- 
pert to design the house and another to design the grounds, and 
permitting these two to work without any harmonic purpose; yet 
it is as important to the appearance of the house that the grounds 
be co-ordinated with it, as it is to the place as a w^hole to have the 
house set naturally upon it. Landscape architecture as a pro- 
fession is still new, in spite of the enormous success which its first 

[vii] 



I n t r o d 



u 



great American exponent, Mr. Frederick Law Olmstead, achieved 
a half century ago, and the members of the profession, talented, 
brilliant and able as many of them are, do not find the general 
recognition of the necessity of their services which has only lately 
been accorded to the architectural profession. Some idea of the 
very great importance of a capable landscape architect can be ob- 
tained from the illustrations in this volume, and they prove that 
the landscape man (or woman) is as mucli a necessitv in the small 
garden as in the large park, just as an architect is as indispensable 
to the design of a cottage as he is to that of a theater. Neverthe- 
less people continue to exercise their own judgment in garden- 
ing, as they do in architecture and in decoration, with results 
which in this art do not as a whole approach any more nearly a 
high level than in the others. People with some knowledge of 
flowers and with native good taste can plant a garden of a country 
place which will look well for a while or at certain seasons, but a 
very expert and technical knowledge of fiowers and shrubs is 
needed if the place is to continue to improve with age. Much of 
the planting has of late been done by men from the nurseries, who 
look at the planting much as a carpenter does when he builds a 
house of good material without regard for the artistic result; 
they plant sound, healthy, and shapely trees without thinking of 
their future development. The layman, when he does his work 
himself, frequently forgets that the trees which he plants as a 
border may eventuallv entirelv cut out or smother shrubs behind 
them, though the latter at the time of planting are the larger. 
In addition many of us know little of the seasons of flowering or 

[viii] 



I n t r o d u c t o r y 

of the exact varieties of bulbs which will yield most profusely and 
for the longest time, so that we very frequently hnd a home-made 
garden beautiful in spring, half blooming in summer, and bar- 
ren in the autumn. It is to correct just such faults as these that a 
landscape architect is employed, and in considering the selection 
of the landscape architect to write this volume of the ''Livable 
House'' series. Miss Dean was chosen because of her very wide 
familiarity with the problem of planting with regard to its ulti- 
mate effect and her great success in work around small iiouses, as 
well as in larger work. Slie has achieved especial success in the 
treatment of the house garden, both in informal and in formal 
ways, and the admirable manner in which she has used native 
siirubs in combination has tended to give her work a more quiet 
and less exotic character than that of many of the other members 
of her profession. Added to this is the fact that her training has 
been under men who represented rather extreme differences of 
opinion in regard to landscape work, so that she has been led to 
perceive the valuable i]ualities of the several types of land- 
scape architecture and is able to apply to any particular problem 
the solution which best hts it. As training of this kind leads an 
artist to a more generous appreciation of the whole field of his 
or her work, a book written bv such hands will deal in a more 
broadminded and generous way with all schools of design, than 
would one written bv a person whose training had been acquired 
in a certain definite and limited field. Miss Dean has in addi- 
tion the very valuable faculty of being able to think clearly and 
express her thoughts simply, so that the results of her knowledge 

[ix] 



Introductory 

are more easily available to the reader than those of many pro- 
fessional people, who, knowing their business, are yet unable to 
describe it. 

Without attempting to survey even briefly the ground covered 
in this volume, the editor can sincerely say that his professional 
experience has led him to believe verv thoroughlv in the princi- 
ples herein set forth, and that he recommends them most earnestly 
to any one who is interested in the art of gardening. 

The Editor. 



[x] 



Contents 



PAGE 

Introductory vii 

I T H E G R U X D S A S A \A' H L E . . . . I 

Position of the house ziith respect to exposure, drainage, 
accessihilitx from street, and possible garden site. Forms 
and kinds of drives. Grading on approximately level 
ground and on irregular ground. Terraces, retaining zvalls 
and steps. 

IT G E X E R A L P L A X T I X G 5 ^ 

Foundation planting; purpose of, appropriate and inap- 
propriate sorts. Border planting; vsoodland and garden- 
esque. Planting along drives and zvalks. Screen planting. 
Specimen planting. yPiscellaneous flozver planting. 

III T H E F LOW ER G ARD E X 83 

The "Planned" or, informally, formal garden; its loca- 
tion, design, arrangement of flozcers, etc. Naturalistic and 
informal gardens. Location, design, materials. 

I V T I M E S A X D S E A S X S I 23 

Spring planting; trees, shrubs, flozvers, bulbs. Tall plant- 
ing. Pruning. 

V G A RDEX Architecture 133 

Gate^, zi-alls, pergolas, garden houses, zx:all fountains, 
figures, seats, sun dials, etc. 



[xi] 



The Illustrations 



APPROPRIATE PLANTING FOR A GARDEN 

DOORWAY Frontispiece 

House of Mr. James C. Breese, (it Southampton, Long Island. McKim, 
Meade and White, Architects 

PAGE 

A HOUSE WHOSE LIVING ROOMS OPEN ON 

A FLOWER GARDEN 3 

House of Mr. G. W. Curtis, at Southampton, Lotu/ Island 

A GARDEN WITH A FOREST FOR BOUNDARY 5 

Grounds of Mr. Jonathan Godfrey, at Bridjjeport, Connecticut. F. 
Burrall Hoffman, Architect : \Iarian C. Coffin, Landscape Architect 

A WALL WHICH CONNECTS HOUSE WITH 
GARAGE AND SHUTS OFF THE SERV- 
ICE Y A R D A S W^ E L L 7 

House of Mr. William H. Marland, Brookline, Massachusetts. Kilham 
and Hopkins, A rehitects 

FORMAL AND NATURALISTIC VERSIONS 

OF THE TURN-AROUND 8 

A TURN-AROUND SIXTY FEET IN 

DIAMETER 9 

Grounds of Mr. E. L. Winthrop, Syosset, Long Island. Delano and 
Aid rich, Architects 

A COMBINATION OF T U R N - A R O U N D AND 

COURT 10 

Estate of J. Percy Keating, Esq., St. Martins, Pennsylvania. Lay and 
W^heel\vrig;ht, Landscape Architects 

COURTYARD-TURN 12 

Grounds of Mrs. Alexander, Bernardsville, N eiv Jersey. Delano and 
Aldrich, Architects 

WALLED COURT TREATMENT OF 

ENTRANCE DRIVE 13 

House of Mrs. Alexander, Bernardsville, Neiv Jersey. Delano and 
Aldrich, Architects 

THE COURT YARD OF AN OLD DUTCH 

FARM HOUSE 15 

The Andrew Haring house, at Northvale, Nezv Jersey 

[xiii] 



The I I I u s t r a t i 



o n s 



PAGE 



PLAN OF A FORECOURT ON A SMALL 

PLACE 17 

A PLEASING BOX-BORDERED FOOT-PATH . . 19 
House of Mr. Marshall Fry, at Southampton, Long Island. Aymar 
Embury II, Architect 

AN ANGLE ENTRANCE WITH A FLAG-STONE 

FOOT PATH 20 

House of Mr. L. T. Beale, at St. Davids, Pennsylvania. Mellor and 
Meigs, Architects 

STRICTLY FORMAL BRICK WALKS 21 

Garden of Mr. Charles W. Leavitt, Landscape Architect 

COMFORTABLE LOOKING FLAG WALKS . . . 23 

"Brookside/' estate of Mr. William Hall Walker. Ferrucio \'itale. 
Landscape Architect 

A FRIENDLY GRASS WALK 25 

Estate of Air. Michael Jenkins, Roland Park, Baltimore, Maryland 
Sears and Wendell, Landscape Architects 

A LONG FLIGHT OF SHALLOW STEPS . . . 26 

Estate of Mr. Samuel Heilner, at Cows, Neiv York. Ferrucio Vitale, 
Landscape Architect 

A DRIVE WHICH TAKES ADVANTAGE OF A 

GOOD NATURAL SETTING 27 

Residence of Mr. J. Brooks Nichols, at Detroit, Michigan. Chittenden 
and Kotting, Architects 

A TERRACE OF GOOD WIDTH 29 

"Brookside" estate of Mr. William Hall Walker, Great Barrington, 
Massachusetts. Carrere and Hastings, Architects; Ferrucio Vitale, 
Landscape Architect 

A TERRACE OF GOOD WIDTH WITH STEPS 

TOO OVERGROWN 31 

House of Mr. Charles P. Leach, at Ipswich, Massachusetts. Kilham 
and Hopkins, Architects 

AN INTERESTING SERIES OF DRY WALLS . 33 
"Huntland," estate of Mr. J. B. Thomas, Middleburg, J'irginia 
Peabody, Wilson and Brown, Architects 

A TERRACE WALL AND IRON RAILING . . . 35 
Detail of the garden of Mr. Charles A. Piatt, Architect, at Cornish, 
Ne-w Hampshire 

A RETAINING WALL WHICH IS MORE 

INTERESTING THAN A GRASS SLOPE 

WOULD BE 37 

Forest Hills Gardens, Forest Hills, Long Island. Grosvenor Atterbury, 
Architect 

[xiv] 



The I I I u s t r a t 



tons 



PAGE 



APPROPRIATE MATERIALS FOR THE SIZE 

AND CHARACTER 39 

"li^eld," garden of Mr. Larz Anderson, Brookline, Massachusetts 
Charles A. Piatt, Architect 

A COMBINATION OF MANY MATERIALS 

WHICH IS NOT UN PLEASING 41 

Knickerbocker Golf Club, Tenafly, Nezv Jersey. Ruth Dean, 
Landscape Architect 

A GOOD DRY WALL WELL PLANTED .... 43 
"The Knoll," estate of Mr. Alvah Crocker, at Fitchburg, Massachusetts 
Olmsted Brothers, Landscape Architects 

A GOOD FLIGHT OF STEPS IN A RETAIN- 
ING WALL 45 

Forest Hills, Long Island. Grosvenor Atterbur^', Architect 

FOUNDATION PLANTING SHOULD TIE THE 

HOUSE INTO ITS SURROUNDINGS . . . 53 
House of Mrs. George N. Gales, at Great Neck, Long Island. Aymar 
Embury II, Architect 

AN INTERESTING COMBINATION OF 

MATERIALS 55 

Garden of R. B. Ward, Esq., at New Rochelle, Neiv York. Thomas 
W. Sears, Landscape Architect 

RHODODENDRONS ARE BEST COMBINED 

WITH OTHER KINDS OF PLANTS . . . 57 

Forest Hills Gardens, Forest Hills, Long Island. Olmsted Brothers, 
Landscape Architects 

CEDARS USED PROPERLY NEAR A HOUSE 

WALL 59 

House of Mr. W. E. Seeley, Bridgeport, Connecticut. Murphy and 
Dana, Architects 

AN EXCEPTION TO THE RULE OF NO 
FLOWERS ABOUT THE HOUSE 

FOUNDATION 61 

Garden of Mrs. J. Clifton Edgar, at Greenwich, Connecticut. Marian 
C. Coffin, Landscape Architect 

PLANT A POND WITH THOSE TREES AND 
SHRUBS WHICH GROW NATURALLY 
N E A R W A T E R 63 

"Gravetye ," estate of William Robinson, Esq., at Kingscote, Sussex, 
England. Courtesy of Air. Thomas W. Sears 

THE CORNERS OF FLOWER BEDS ARE HERE 

REINFORCED BY SHRUBS 65 

Garden of Charles A. Piatt, Architect, at Cornish, Nezc Hampshire 

[xv] 



The 1 I I u s t r a t 



ions 



PAGE 



DIAGRAM ILLUSTRATING PLANTING IN 

THE BEND OF A DRIVE 66 

A CURVING PATH WELL PLANTED 67 

Garden of Mr. Edward E. Sprague, at Flushing, Long Island. Marian 
C. Coffin. Landscape Architect 

A TWISTED "SPECIMEN" TREE RESPON- 
SIBLE FOR MUCH OF THE CHARM OF 
THE FOUNTAIN 69 

Grosvenor Atterbury, Architect ; Olmsted Brothers, Landscape Architects 

SEVERAL SETS OF "SPECOIEN" PLANTS 
ARE USED AGREEABLY ON THIS 

TERRACE 71 

House of Miss R. H03 1, at Southampton, Long Island. Hiss and 
Weeks, Architects ; Ferrucio Vitale, Landscape Architect 

SPRING BULBS NATURALIZED IN THE 

GRASS 72 

Garden of Edward E. Sprague, Esq., at Flushing, Long Island. Marian 
C. Coffin, Landscape Architect 

A PATH WITH PLANTS WHICH EMPHASIZE 

ITS WOODLAND CHARACTER 73 

Estate of Mr. W. B. H. Dowse, at West Newton, Massachusetts 
Pray, Hubbard and White, Landscape Architects 

THE FIRST TWO ARE ADVISABLE FORMS 

TO WHICH TO SHEAR A HEDGE, THE 
THIRD INADVISABLE 74 

A STRAIGHT FLOWER-BORDERED WALK . . 75 

Estate of Edward E. Sprague, Esq., at Flushing, Long Island. Marian 
C. Coffin, Landscape Architect 

A GOOD COMBINATION OF VINES AND 

FLOWERS AGAINST A WALL 77 

Garden of Charles W. Hubbard, Esq., at Auburndale, Massachusetts 
Olmsted Brothers, Landscape Architects 

A SHADED ALLEY WHICH FORMS THE 

ENTRANCE 85 

Garden of Miss Fannie Mulford, at Hempstead, Long Island. Ruth 
Dean, Landscape Architect 

AN ANTE ROOM TO THE GARDEN 87 

House at Villa Nova, Pennsylvania. Duhring, Okie and Ziegler, 
Architects 

[xvi] 



The Illustrations 



PAGE 



AN "ALL-OVER PATTERN" GARDEN — VIEW 

TAKEN FROM "A" ON PLAN 89 

Garden of Mr. Aymar f^mbury II, Jrchitect. at Englewood, A'rzr Jersey 

PLAN OFTHE GARDEN 90 

Of Air. Aymar Embury II, Architect, Englewood, l\h-w Jersey 

A GARDEN WELL SURROUNDED 91 

Garden of Air. A. H. Storer, at Ridgcfield, Connecticut. Lay and 
Wheelwright, Landscape Architects 

A GARDEN WITH A NATURAL FOREST 

BACKGROUND 93 

Estate of Air. Charles W. Hubbard, at Weston, Alassachusetts 
Olmsted Brothers, Landscape Architects 

PLAN OF THE GARDEN 95 

Of Air. Charles W. Hubbard, at Weston, ^Lissachasetts. (Mmsted 
Brothers, J^andscape Architects 

A BOUNDARY WHICH Li:VIITS THE GARDEN 

WITHOUT SHUTTING IT IN 97 

Estate of Air. Charles W. Hubbard. Olmsted Brothers, Landscape 
Architects 

FLOWER BEDS BORDERING A CENTRAL 

STRETCH OF TURF 98 

Estate of Air. Michael Jenkins, at Roland Park, Baltimore. Alaryland 
Sears and Wendell, Landscape Architects 

A GARDEN WITH AN OPEN CENTER . . . . OQ 
Grounds of Air. Jonathan Godfre\-, at Bridgeport, Connecticut 
Marian C. Coffin, Landscape Architect; F. Burrall Hoffman, 
Architect 

A CENTRAL GRASS PANEL OUTLINED 

BY BOX loi 

Garden of Air. Marshall Fr\, at Southampton, Lonr/ Island.- Aymar 
Embury II. Architect 

THE EDGE OF A POOL SHOULD NOT BE 
ENTIRELY SURROUNDED BY 

PLANTING 102 

Garden of Air. H. H. Rogers, at Southampton, Long Island. Walker 
and Gilbert, Architects 

WATERSIDE PLANTS GROWING NEAR A 

FORMAL POOL 103 

Garden of Airs. Harry Payne Whitney, at Westbury, Long Island 
Delano and Aldrich, Architects 

[xvii] 



The III u s t r a t 



ions 



WATER LILY PADS WHICH LEAVE A 

PLEASING WATER SURFACE OPEN 

FOR REFLECTIONS 105 

House of Mr. Thomas H. Kerr, at White Plains, Nezr York. Albro 
and Lindeberg, Architects 

FALLS AT THE END OF THE SWIMMING 

POOL 106 

Estate of Mr. K. D. Alexander, at Spring Station, Kentucky. Jens 
Jensen, Landscape Architect 

A TERRACE GARDEN WITH A POOL 

AGAINST THE WALL 107 

Grounds of Air. H. H. Rogers, at Tuxedo, Neiv York. \Valker and 
Gillette, Architects 

A "STUDIED HAP-HAZARD" GARDEN . . . . 109 
At Bedford Hills, Nezr York. Pray, Hubbard and White, Landscape 
A rehitccts 

A NATURALISTIC SWIMMING POOL . . . .110 
On the grounds of Mr. K. D. Alexander, at Spring Station, Kentucky 
Jens Jensen, Landscape Architect 

AN UNUSUALLY GOOD PIECE OF ROCK 

WORK Ill 

Estate of Mr. K. D. Alexander, at Spring Station, Kentucky. Jens 
Jensen, Landscape Architect 

PLANS OF A COUNTRY PLACE 113 

At Bedford Hills, \en' York 

"THE SPRING" IX A ROCK GARDEN . . . .114 
At Newport, Rhode Island. Pray. Hubbard and White, Landscape 
A rehitccts 

PLANTING CHARACTERISTIC OF THE 

MARSHY STREAMS NEAR CHICAGO . .115 
Estate of Mr. Harry Rubens, Glencoe, Illinois. Jens Jensen, Landscape 
Architect 

PLANTING WHICH IS CONVINCINGLY 

NATURALISTIC 117 

Estate of C. S. Walton, Esq., at St. Davids, Pennsylvania. Sears and 
Wendell, Landscape Architects 

PLAN FOR THE POOL 118 

Estate of H. Rubens, Glencoe, Illinois 

AN ARCH AS A FRAME DOUBLES THE 

INTEREST IN A GARDEN i34 

Grounds of Mr. H. H. Rogers, at Southampton, Long Island. Walker 
and Gillette, Architects ; Olmsted Brothers, Landscape Architects 

[xviii] 



The I I I u s t 



a t I o n 



A GATEWAY WHICH MAKES AN ORDINARY 

PATH INTERESTING 136 

Forest Hills Gardens. Forest Hills, Long Island. Wilson Eyre, 
Jrcliitect 

A PLEASING GATE AT FOREST HILLS . . .137 
Grosvenor Atterbur\ , Architeet 

A GATE OF ORIGINAL DESIGN 138 

House of Mr. Daniel E. Pomeroy, at Englewood, Neic Jersey. A\ mar 
Embury II, Arehiteet 

A PLEASING WALL WITH STUCCO FINISH 

AND MOLDED BRICK CAP 141 

"Huntland." Estate of Mr. J. B. Thomas, at Middleburg, Jirginia 
Peabody, Wilson and Brown, Architects 

SIMPLE ROSE ARCHES OF VERY GOOD 

DESIGN .142 

A GATEWAY AND ARBOR AT HAMILTON 

FARM 142 

A W^ALL PERGOLA WITH VALUABLE 

PLANTING SPACE AT ITS BASE . . . .143 
Garden of Mr. Jonathan Godfrey, at Bridgeport, Connecticut. Mariaii 
C. Coffin, Landscape Architect ; F. Burrall Hoffman, Architect 

A FAUN 144 

J. C. Kraus, Stoneivorkcr 

A DELIGHTFUL OLD GARDEN HOUSE. . . .145 
Designed by Samuel Maclntire in 17 gg on the Osborn estate at Peabody, 
Massachusetts 

A USUAL FIGURE WHICH IS VERY 

PLEASING 147 

E. Lucchesi, Stonenorker 

A FINE REPRODUCTION OF A NEO- 

GRCECQUE PHILOSOPHER 147 

J. C. Kraus, Stoneicorker 

A GOOD TERMINAL FIGURE FOR PATH ... 148 

ANOTHER TERMINAL FIGURE FOR PATH . . 148 

AGARDEN HOUSE 149 

On the (/rounds of Mr. Charles W. Hubbard, Auburndale, Massachusetts 
Olmsted Brothers, Landscape Architects 

A FRUIT BASKET FOR A GARDEN GATE 

POST .150 

J. C. Kraus, Stoneworker 

[xix] 



The I I I u s t r a t i 



o n 



DOORWAY IN THE GARDEN OE AIRS. 

ROBERT C. HILL 151 

At Easthampton, Long Ishmd. Des'ujncd by Mrs. Robert C. Hill 

A GLIMPSE THROUGH THE GATE INTO 

"GREY GARDENS" 152 

Easthampton, Long Island. Mrs. Robert C. Hill, Landscape Architect 

AN UNUSUALLY GOOD WALL OF CONCRETE 153 

Garden of Mrs. Robert C. Hill, at Easthampton, Long Island 

A BEAUTIFULLY DESIGNED DOORWAY . . .154 
In the garden of Air. C. L. Ring, at Saginaw, Michigan. Charles 
A. Piatt, Architect 

A GOOD GARDEN ENTRANCE . .155 

On the grounds of Mr. Jonathan Godfrey, at Bridgeport, Connecticut 
F. Burrall Hoffman, Architect; Alarian C. Coffin, Landscape 
A rchitect 

STONE COIGNS AND CAP F0R:\I A GOOD 
CONTRAST TO THE PLAIN SURFACE 

OF THE WALL 156 

Grounds of Mr. Bronson Winthrop, at Syosset, Long Island. Delano 
and Aldrich, Architects 

A PERGOLA GATE OF INTERESTING 

MATERIALS AND DESIGN 157 

Garden of C. S. Walton, Esq., at St. Davids, Pennsylvania. Sears and 
Wendell, Landscape Architects 

A WALL OF REFINED DESIGN 158 

Garden of Mrs. E. S. Clark, Pomfret, Connecticut. Charles A. Piatt, 
Architect 

A GATE POST OF SIMPLE DIGNIFIED 

DESIGN . . .159 

Estate of Mr. Willard Straight, at Westbury, Long Island 
A. F. Brinckerhoff, Landscape Architect 

A CLEVER TRELLIS TREATMENT OF A 

HIGH WALL . . . . .160 

In the garden of Mr. Charles Biddle, at Andalusia, Pennsylvania 
Mellor and Meigs, Architects 

AN UNUSUALLY GOOD BIT OF "RUSTIC 

WORK" .161 

Garden of Mrs. J. Clifton Edgar, at Greenwich, Connecticut. Marian 
C. Coffin, Landscape Architect 

A FENCE OF CHESTNUT PALINGS BETWEEN 

BRICKPIERS 162 

Garden of Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney, Westbury, Long Island 
Delano and Aldrich, Architects 

[xx] 



The I I I a s t r a t i o n s 

THE WHITE PICKET FENCE OF A 

DOOR-YARD GARDEN 163 

House of Mrs. Harrison Sanford, at Litchfield, Conmcticut. Restored 
by Aymar Embury II, Architect 

SUCCESSFUL USE OF A FREE-STANDING 

WALL 164 

In the grounds of Mr. Mortimer L. Schiff, at Oyster Bay, Long Island 
James L. Greenleaf, Landscape Architect 

ARBOR IN THE CENTRE OF A CURVED 

TRELLIS 165 

Garden of Miss Fannie IMulford, at Hempstead, Long Island. Ruth 
Dean, Landscape Architect 

AN OLD DUTCH GARDEN 166 

On the Paramus Road near Hohokus, Neiv Jersey 

GAZEBO OF THE ROY ALL HOUSE 167 

At Medford, Massachusetts 

AN AMUSING WALL FOUNTAIN 168 

At "Brookside," Estate of Mr. William Hall Walker, Great Barrington, 
Massachusetts. Ferrucio V^itale, Landscape Architect 

A WALL FOUNTAIN COMBINED WITH A 

POOL 169 

Garden of Mr. H. H. Rogers, at Tuxedo, New York. Walker and 
Gillette. Architects 

A GARDEN ENTRANCE FOR WHOSE CHARAI 

AGE IS RESPONSIBLE 170 

House at So Federal Street, Salem, Massachusetts. Samuel Mclntyre, 
Architect, 17 82 

A DOVE COT 171 

In the Garden of Mrs. Robert C. Hill, at Easthampton, Long Island 

A WROUGHT IRON LANTERN AND 

BRACKET 172 

At Forest Hills Gardens, Forest Hills, Long Island. Grosvenor 
Atterbury, Designer 

TWO BENCHES OF INTERESTING DESIGN 

BACKED UP BY TRELLIS 173 

Ralph Adams Cram, Architect 

A REPRODUCTION OF AN OLD RENAIS- 
SANCE URN 174 

At Hamilton Farm, Gladstone, Neiv Jersey. Ruth Dean, Landscape 
Architect ; J. C. Kraus, Stoneivorker 



[xxi] 



The Grounds as a Whole 



THE LIVABLE HOUSE 



Its Garden 

CHAPTER ONE 

The G r v y, d s as a Whole 

#^4"^# NGLISH people have a pleasant wav of referrins^ to 
•^ H "^ the entire grounds about a house as ''the garden," in- 

^^ n ^ . 

@'^*^*^# eluding in the term not only the portions actually 
given over to flowers and vegetables, of which we are 
accustomed to think as "garden," but lawns and brooks and al- 
most any area which cannot be dignified by such a term as "park," 
"wood," "meadow," or "vineyard"; and by making the word 
plural and speaking of "the gardens" they are able to include 
these as well. It is a very pleasing use of the word; if one has 
only a back yard containing a few shrubs and a flower border, one 
likes to think of it as something more than a back yard, and to 
dignify it by the title of garden is to lift it at once out of the com- 
pany of clothes poles and garbage receptacles and turn it into an 
attractive and inviting spot. 

The term ''garden" for purposes of this book is going to adopt 
the attributes of its English cousins, and include everything be- 
tween the doorstep and the property line. 

[i] 



The Livable Ho n s e 

The relation of the doorstep to the property line, however, is 
dependent upon the location of the house, the choice of which five 
important factors should influence. These are — exposure to sun 
and breezes; second, drainage, natural and artificial; third, ac- 
cessibility from the street; fourth, the amount of grading neces- 
sitated; and fifth, a possible garden site. These factors have to 
be weighed with one another and sometimes the less important 
sacrificed for the more — but their consideration emphasizes one 
point greatly to be desired, that of planning the house with refer- 
ence to the type of land on which it is to be built, or putting it in 
reverse order, the choice of a piece of property which will suit 
the style of house one has decided to build. 

Formal symmetrical h(nises should not be built where they cling 
precariously to steep hillsides or sit uneasily on inadequate and 
specially created plateaux; an informal, picturesque style of archi- 
tecture can be fitted comfortably into the uneven surfaces of hill- 
sides; the classic house with its regular lines and balanced plan 
should find a site on a level or gently rolling sweep of ground. 
The important point is that house and land be considered together. 

But whatever the kind of house, and whether or not it suit its 
particular piece of property, it is only sensible to place it so that 
the main living rooms catch the greatest amount of sunlight and 
summer breezes, and avoid dour shade and winter winds. The 
latter consideration works out almost automatically, because sum- 
mer winds are usuallv south winds, and those of winter, north; so 
that the house which benefits by summer breezes thereby turns 
its back to the north. Moreover, the question of sunlight does not 

[2] 



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[3] 



The Livable House 

conflict with this consideration because, generally speaking, the 
south and east offer the greatest amount of desirable light. It fol- 
lows that a house on the south or west side of a street would have 
to face toward the rear or side of its lot in order to capture a 
maximum of light and air; but this is not the heretic suggestion 
it would have been considered in the days when back doors were 
unfeignedly back doors and, as such, neglected to the point of 
ugliness. Nowadays a service court, walled or hedged round 
about, has its own charm, and is very often on the street side of 
the house in order to leave the living rooms free to face a fine 
view or a flower garden. Which moves the fifth point, — the pos- 
sible garden site, up to second place, and I am not sure but that 
it deserves an earlier consideration than my efforts to treat it im- 
partially first accorded it. 

Generally speaking, a southern or southwestern exposure is best 
for the flower garden — and, if the house has been wisely planned 
and placed, one or more of the main rooms will give on such an 
exposure, so as to make the garden enjoyable immediately from 
the house. 

No garden should be built where it will come in the way of a 
distant view, but should lie rather where it may be walled round 
by the house and some natural boundary, such as a wood or a hill; 
seen in connection with any great distance the garden grows in- 
significant; it must be treated as an outdoor room, with outdoor 
walls to give it scale and importance, and that close, intimate 
feeling which is part of a garden's charm. House and garden 
ought to be considered simultaneously, and such a position on the 

[4] 



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[5] 



The Livable House 

property chosen as will accommodate not only the building itself 
but the garden as well, in order that the two may be treated as a 
unit and the garden continue the lines of the house. 

Preferably it should continue them away from the road or en- 
trance side of the house in order to catch something of the remote 
feeling which belongs to woods and fields, and will not co-exist 
with automobiles and deliyery wagons. These necessities should 
be provided for in such a way as to leave one side of the house free 
for garden, and as much of the grounds as possible unbroken by 
road ; which means that forethought must be brought to bear when 
the house is being planned and such details settled as the position 
of the furnace, so that the finished house will not be discovered 
with a coal window accessible only through the flower garden, or 
a garage occupying the best possible outlook from the living-room 
windows. Nine times out of ten on a place too small to provide 
room for tucking the garage and outbuildings away out of sight 
from the house, these buildings will group advantageously near 
the kitchen wing, even form a part of the same structure by the 
use of such connecting features as grape arbors or trellis or the 
much-misused pergola. An arrangement by which the service 
portions of a place are kept together automatically guarantees 
one or more sides of the house open for lawn or garden, or both, 
and makes for convenience as well. 

But with the wisdom of this plan admitted, it is often no easy 
thing to so place the gnjup on the ground as to make it accessible 
from the street with any beauty or dignity of approach, not to 
mention ease and convenience. 

[6] 



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[7] 



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House 



Sifted down to first principles, there are but three forms 
which an entrance drive may take. First, the drive which ends 





FOR M AL AND NATU 
RALISTIC VERSIONS 
OF THE TURN- 
AROUND 



in a turn-around; second, the horseshoe or U-shaped drive; and 
third, the drive which terminates in a yard or court. 

The first admits of more variation and amplification than the 
others, and is probably most often used. Formal and naturalistic 
versions of this kind of drive are shown side by side on this page. 

[8] 



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House 




JT- MAHTJAJ /.AAX- 



A COMBINATION OF TURNAROUND 

AND COURT 

Estate of J. Percy Keating, Esq., St. Martins, Pennsylvania. 
Lay and Wheelwright, Landscape Architects 



[lo] 



Its Garden 

The formal plan needs a great deal of space in order to make 
it effective, for the dignity of any vista depends largely upon 
its length, and such a scheme as this should not be attempted in 
connection with any but a formal house, with almost unlimited 
space in front of it. The freer sort of turn-around is more adapt- 
able and can be managed in less room, for it is possible to so plant 
such a drive as to disguise its limits. But it is not possible to 
reduce these limits to a circle of less than sixty feet outside diam- 
eter, unless the entire turn-around be given over to gravel; eighty 
feet is a more comfortable minimum. 

Mr. Keating's place at St. Martins illustrates a clever scheme 
for a drive on a small place. It is a combination of turn-around 
and court, — and occupies what under ordinary circumstances 
would be the entire front yard. The space inside the wall is 
95x61; feet, and the drive is 15 feet wide. A straight service 
drive leads to the garage at the rear of the property, and it is 
worth noting in connection with this plan that the garage is off 
centre with the drive, so that from the street one may not look 
straight down the drive into the yawning doors of the garage. 
Curving the drive a little, so as to plant out the direct line of 
vision, accomplishes the same result, but requires more space than 
is available between property line and house, on this plan. 

The plan and photograph of Mrs. Alexander's place at Ber- 
nardsville, illustrates much the same sort of entrance arrangement 
on a larger scale. 

A turn which takes the form of an ellipse, or some variant of 
an ellipse, is more agreeable than the simple, obvious circle. The 

[II] 



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-HOVJE: for iV^'ALEXANDER- 

-BER-N-^RDJVULE-.NE^' JER5EY ~ 

; -DElANO-S.ALDRiCH -ARCHITECTS - 



COURTYARD-TURN 

Grounds of Mrs. Alexander, Bernardsville, New Jersey. 
Delano and Aldrich, Architects 



[12] 



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[13] 



The Livable House 

latter, because of its regularity of outline, is difficult to plant in- 
terestingly, and is apt to be left, except for a tree or bush in the 
centre, totally unplanted, with the whole turn barrenly visible. 
But like the failure of the book, whose end is readable from the 
beginning, to invite us beyond the first chapter, and the picture 
whose beauties are all apparent in a flash to hold our attention, 
the turn-around which is to be seen in its entirety lacks the charm 
which goes along with mystery; the well-designed road, on the 
other hand, does not reveal at once all that lies ahead, but con- 
trives by a combination of form and grading and planting to lead 
up to the house in an inviting way. Even when the road is 
squeezed into the smallest possible compass, and there is no longer 
room left in which to imagine anything but how to get the auto- 
mobile around in the least damaging w^ay, a few shrubs and a 
tree or tw^o are desirable, just for the sake of ornament. They 
may not create an illusion as to what lies ahead, but they take 
away an otherwise barren look and increase the apparent size of 
the turn by concealing somewhat its limitations. 

The ''horseshoe" or U-shaped drive is a useful subterfuge which 
offers an infallible way out of the difficulty of a drive in a shallow 
yard. It delivers one neatly at the front door and presents no 
disconcerting sharp turns or awkward necessities for backing, such 
as the cramped turn-around is apt to abound in. Its very obvious- 
ness is probably the chief argument to be used against it; this, and 
the fact that it necessitates two entrances. Like the circular turn, 
it is more often than not uninterestingly regular in outline, with 
its end too apparent from the beginning, though this latter objec- 

' ■ [14] 



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[15] 



The Livable House 

tion can be met by skillful planting and grading. If the road 
surface be sunk slightly below the surrounding lawn, or, to put 
it another way, if the lawn be crowned toward the centre, the ex- 
tent of the road will be minimized, and one side made almost, if 
not quite, invisible from the other. This, with planting in one 
or both of the curves, w^ill reduce the effect of a drive which leads 
into a place only to lead out again. 

The third sort of road, that which ends in a yard or court, goes 
about solving the drive difficulty in a dififerent way from either 
of the other two. Instead of trying to minimize the extent of 
road necessary by a stretch of green in the centre, it sets aside a 
certain space for turning, surfaces it all over like the drive, and 
then walls it in, or fences it off, or plants it out. On a big place 
such a drive oftenest takes the form of a forecourt, and pre- 
supposes a more or less formal arrangement of buildings. On a 
small place a forecourt is seldom used, for the reason that it 
means sacrificing too much space in front of the house. But there 
is no reason why such a scheme could not be made very delightful, 
given a type of house adaptable to this treatment; a house which 
would take kindly to walls and fences and a paved English court. 
I am free to admit that I have never seen such a plan carried out 
in connection with the small house, but it is, I think, very well 
worth trying. The plan on page 17 illustrates the scheme, and 
embodies all sorts of ideas which do not appear on the sur- 
face, tall sunflowers and larkspur against a whitewashed wall, and 
a weathered bench under a twisted old tree, as well as the flag- 
stones (which might be brick) laid in a pattern. A picture of one 

[16] 



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PLAN OF A FORECOURT ON A SMALL 

PLACE 

One uay of soiv'iny the drive problem 



[17] 



The Livable House 

of those story-book English courtyards will serve to illustrate the 
spirit of the thing. 

Regarded from a strictly utilitarian point of view, the court- 
yard may be removed to the side or back of the house, and there 
used as a combination service and garage yard and turn-around. 
A car can back and turn in a space about forty feet square, which 
may be planted out so as to be practically invisible from the house. 
This arrangement, with a drive which runs alongside the house, 
probably cuts the grounds up the least, and entails the smallest 
amount of drive construction. It means, however, that no car 
has an exit without proceeding to the yard and turning, or 
else adopting the somewhat inconvenient expedient of backing 
out. 

If the drive happens to be narrow, the grass borders and the 
owner's temper suffer correspondingly. A ten-foot road, widened 
to twelve or fourteen feet on the turns, is enough for one car to 
proceed comfortably. If the road be a long one this width is 
apt to look narrow, and should be broadened to twelve feet for 
appearance's sake. A twelve-foot road, however, is not wide 
enough for two cars to pass, and if this necessity is going to arise, 
the drive should be increased to fifteen feet. 

The commonest material, and probably the most satisfactory, for 
drive construction on private grounds is crushed stone. Where 
stone is very plentiful locallv, the foundation may be made of 
coarse stone with the finer layers on top, but in regions where stone 
must be shipped in, cinders may be used as a base. A crushed 
stone foundation sometimes obviates the necessity of subsurface 

[i8] 



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[19] 



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L i V a b I 



House 




AN ANGLE ENTRANCE WITH A FLAG 
STONE FOOT-PATH 

House of Mr. L. T. Beale, at St. Davids, Pennsylvania. 
Mellor and Meigs, Architects 

[20] 



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STRICTLY FORMAL BRICK WALKS 

Garden of Mr. Charles W. Leavitt, Landscape Architect 

[21] 



The Livable House 

drains, but in places where there is liable to be standing water 
any foundation will need drains of one sort or another. 

A tile drain laid under one gutter will usually take care of the 
sub-drainage and may be utilized in carrying ofif the surface 
water by means of tiles run to it from the catch basins. All drains 
should be laid at least three feet six inches below grade in the 
region of New York, in order to go down below the frost line. 

In cases where the sub-soil is a very hard clay which retains 
the water, two drains, one under each gutter mav be necessary. 
The most important point in road construction is to have the sub- 
soil well drained, because thorough drainage is essential to a good 
foundation. A sub-soil which holds water will make the entire 
road soft and spongy, and no amount of top dressing will be of per- 
manent value. For a careful and thorough treatise on road-mak- 
ing, see Mr. Ira Osborn Baker's "Roads and Pavements." 

Gutters may be made of any one of a number of materials 
equally satisfactory. Brick, stone, asphalt block, concrete, are all 
structurally adaptable. But they all have the same unpleasant 
quality of defining the road, and making it stand out from the 
lawn. Sod gutters should be used whenever possible, or better 
still gutters should be dispensed with altogether in places where 
they are not absolutely necessary to carry olT the surface drainage. 

In the consideration of approaches to the house, one is apt to 
ignore completely the place of the footpath, which, in these days 
of plentiful automobiles, has happily become not entirely extinct. 
The idea of convenience in rainy weather, which makes all of us 
who have once suffered a drenching of our best clothes unwilling 

[22] 



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COMFORTABLE LOOKING FLAG WALKS 

"Brookside," Estate of Mr. William Hall Walker 
Ferrucio Vitale, Landscape Architect 
[23] 



The Livable House 

to walk to the doorstep, is one which might well be sacrificed 
for the improved appearance of the grounds. A house which is 
nearer the road than seventy-five feet should content itself with 
a side drive and a walk. 

Four feet six inches is a minimum width for such a walk, be- 
cause a narrower path does not permit two people to walk abreast; 
nothing so cramps a place, and detracts from that spacious air of 
ease and dignity, which is one of its most desirable attributes, as 
narrow walks. 

Materials for paths present a much wider range than those for 
drives, and it is sometimes hard to choose among the attractive 
array of bricks and tiles of various sorts, fiags, stone, and slate, 
as well as the old standbyes, crushed stone and gravel. I am pur- 
posely omitting cement walks from this catalogue because of their 
extreme ugliness. They are irretrievably harsh and glaring in 
appearance, and so far as I have been able to discover have no 
quality to recommend them except their great convenience. This 
under some circumstances, I am loath to admit, is sufficient. 

Brick, tile, and gravel are best adapted to formal use, broken 
flags with the grass growing between are essentially informal in 
spirit, although the degree of formality of almost any of these 
materials is affected by the border treatment of the walk. For 
instance, no path with fiowers growing close to its border and 
bending over the edge can be formal, strictly speaking. A turf 
border between the flowers and the walk contributes to its for- 
mality, and a trimmed hedge or coping along the edge prac- 
tically insures it. 

[24] 



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[25] 



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H 



O II 




A LONG FLIGHT OF SHALLOW STEPS 

Estate of Mr. Samuel Heilner, at Cows, New^ York. Ferrucio 
Vitale, Landscape Architecl 

[26] 



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A DRIVE WHICH TAKES ADVANTAGE 
OF A GOOD NATURAL SETTING 

Residence of Mr. J. Brooks Nichols, at Detroit, Michigan. 
Chittenden and Rotting, Architects 

[27] 



The Livable House 

It seems hardly necessary to write admonitions against the need- 
lessly serpentine walk. The path which winds its way across 
thirty unobstructed feet of front lawn is an error we like to think 
of as Victorian, for almost every one has come to realize that a 
path, in order to curve pleasingly, must have some excuse, either 
natural or artificial, for curving. The average dooryard path 
performs its duty best and is therefore most attractive in running 
a straightforward course from gate to door. The inevitable ex- 
ceptions to this rule bring their own solutions. 

The two points which remain unconsidered in a choice of the 
house site — drainage and grading — are more or less interdepend- 
ent. When the question of good drainage arises the prospective 
house builder naturally looks about for a hill on which to place 
his house. And in this connection a popular fallacy has grown 
up about the location of the house which is as firmly adhered to, 
as is the idea that stripes make fat people look thin. If a piece 
of property ofifers a choice of sites, one of which is a hilltop, the 
owner invariably chooses the highest point, telling himself that 
high ground is healthful and that low ground is the haunt of 
mosquitoes, dampness, and disease; and that, moreover, the view 
from his hilltop is unexcelled and affords a complete panorama 
of the countryside. What he overlooks in such a choice is that 
his view probably includes all of his neighbor's houses and barns, 
whereas if he were just under the brow of the hill he would escape 
these, along with the racking winter winds of the hilltop, and 
at the same time have the feeling of greater space and breadth 
which comes with privacy. Almost always his own place will 

[28] 



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[29] 



The Livable House 

offer no end of delightful little views of its own, which are far 
more entertaining and various than the impersonal and tiring (if 
seen constantly) panorama of the whole countryside. This view 
would be much more effective reserved as an occasional treat to 
be seen from a garden house reached by climbing a winding path 
up the hill, than it would be if constantly spread out before one. 

From the point of view of economy, a hilltop usually means 
more road construction and steeper grades than a hillside, and, 
if one happens to be concerned about this item, more landscape 
work. By the time the house has crowned the hilltop it is apt 
to have surmounted all of the trees, and sticks up bare and com- 
manding above their tops. Down a little low^r among the foliage 
of the trees, with the hillside as a background, it would fit 
much more agreeably into its surroundings and form an infinitely 
more pleasing picture than outlined starkly against the sky. 

Drainage would seem on the face of it to be taken care of by 
nature for the house on the hill; as a matter of fact it has prob- 
lems of its own, especially if the hill be steep, quite as difficult 
as the house on bottom land with a marsh to be drained. Rain 
torrents, which rush down the road carrying its surface along, 
must be provided for by frequent catch basins and adequate drains. 
Lawns are apt to be difficult to get and maintain, complicated 
often by the necessity of steep terraces or their costly alternative, 
retaining w^alls. The problem of too little water with which one 
is confronted on the hilltop is less easily and more expensively 
solved than that of too much, which dampens one's enthusiasm for 
a bottom land site. Agricultural tile drains are simpler, much 

[30] 



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A TERRACE OF GOOD WIDTH WITH 
STEPS TOO OVERGROWN 

House of Mr. Charles P. Leach, at Ipswich, Massachusetts. 
Kilham and Hopkins, Architects 

[31] 



The Livable House 

cheaper, and more reliable, however, than pumps and wells, and 
raise a point worth a second consideration in the location of one's 
house. 

It is an axiom that the general slope of the land should be away 
from the house, an axiom which refers to the land immediately 
surrounding the house, however, rather than to the entire grounds. 
It might appear, for example, that a house placed twenty feet 
from the foot of a hill would be more or less inundated after a 
rain, by surface water running down hill. But the simple ex- 
pedient of grading the intervening twenty feet, with a pitch to- 
ward the hill would prevent such a disaster. 

Any house built on hard clay or rock is apt to be troubled by 
dampness or actual wetness from the subsurface water, unless it is 
provided with a foundation drain. This is exactly what its name 
describes — a drain laid around the foundations of the house to 
carry off the water which invariably collects where the soil is least 
dense. 

But the value of grading is not confined to its usefulness in rela- 
tion to proper drainage. It adds to the beauty of the grounds or 
detracts from it materially, according as it is skillfully or poorly 
managed. 

On approximately level ground the problems of grading are apt 
to be less troublesome, though not so interesting in results as those 
of a more uneven site. It is a mistake to flatten out too ruthlessly 
irregularities in surface, for more often than not a garden built 
on different levels has greater charm than one which presents an 
even stretch to the eye. Even a slight difference in levels may 

[32] 



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[33] 



The Livable House 

sometimes be emphasized to good advantage, and the apparent 
drop from one point to another exaggerated. Mr. Ferrucio 
Vitale has accomplished a pleasing deception of this sort in the 
garden of Mr. Samuel Heilner, where the actual difference in 
heights is only three and one-half feet. By making shallow risers 
and tilting the tread back so as to lose an inch or so which has to be 
regained on each riser he has made the flight of steps much longer 
than is necessary, and in so doing has created the illusion of a 
real hill. 

In many ways the casual observer may be hoodwinked by such 
differences in levels. A perfectly flat piece of land always ap- 
pears slightly concave, and needs a small crown in order to make 
it seem flat. Moreover, the effect of a concave surface is de- 
cidedly to shorten a stretch of ground, which, on the other hand, 
mav be equallv lengthened in appearance by a convex grading. 
Any artificial variation in the surface of land which is naturally 
flat should be small or spread over b'g surfaces, in order not to 
seem stiff' and unnatural. Abrupt differences in levels, when they 
become necessary, may be softened by planting. Naturalistic 
groups of native shrubs and trees planted at strategic points, such 
as the junction of a level stretch and the beginning of a slope or on 
an awkward rise, will excuse a grade which, bare of planting, 
would seem forced and unnatural. Such artificial changes in 
level are extremelv useful. For example, shrubs or trees planted 
with the idea of shutting out unpleasant objects will, under most 
circumstances, accomplish this end much sooner for having the 
head start offered by a hill or mound. Grading the boundary up 

[34] 



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[35] 



The Livable H 



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along a street to be screened means sinking the street just so much 
below the level of the eye and increasing the value of the planting 
by the additional height of the border. On the other hand, cut- 
ting down a flat stretch may disclose a very pleasant outlook, and 
will always have the efifect of bringing the object revealed nearer 
to the point of view. 

Getting enough variety into flat land is, for the small place at 
least, a simpler process and always a less expensive one than elimi- 
nating the too great variance in a hillside site. A house to be 
thoroughly pleasing must have the appearance of ease and dig- 
nity which comes from fitting comfortably into its surroundings, 
and if it is designed in the beginning to fit the different levels of 
a hillside it will demand less in the way of grading at the end. 
It is not easy to create landscape; to move in a site to fit a house 
after it is built. Any house is bound to have an unpleasantly new 
appearance for some time after it is completed, and it is far 
simpler to place the house where old trees and a stifiiciently level 
stretch of land invite it, than to import these afterward to give it 
the look of belonging in its surroundings. 

Next to appropriateness in the design of the house itself, prob- 
ably the most important factor in the success of a hillside house 
is the terrace or terraces on which the house stands. Some of the 
uncomfortable looking buildings one sees sliding down hill make 
it seem impossible to build a terrace too wide, although, even if 
this were a serious danger, the expense of grading would usually 
prevent such a circumstance. There is much to be said for the 
distressing condition of the man on a rocky hill where "soil is 

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[37] 



The Livable House 

worth its weight in gold," but this scarcity of materials is some- 
thing which must be anticipated and the house designed to grow 
up out of the hillside, without the need of a wide platform to give 
it the look of stability. 

A good general rule to follow in determining the width of 
terraces is to make them equal to the distance from ground fine 
to eaves, with a minimum width of twelve feet. The picture 
of the Walker house illustrates an ample terrace and the effect 
which it gives the house of spacious dignity. An architectual 
treatment of a terrace such as this (or one in a simpler style), if 
it is well done, is apt to be rather more satisfactory than a terrace 
ending in a grassy slope. In other words, a retaining wall for 
portions of the grounds near the house or those connected with 
the garden is more desirable than a turf bank. A grass terrace 
is always somewhat indefinite as to ending and somewhat difficult 
to stop. For naturalistic work, where the terrace may be treated 
in an irregular manner and allowed to fade away into the sur- 
rounding lawn, it is satisfactory enough, but where it is used 
architecturally and made to conform to a regular outline it is 
both stupid and awkward to handle. Further than this, grass on 
a slope, if it be at all steep, is difficult to maintain and liable to 
burn out in midsummer. 

A wall, on the contrary, offers no unpleasant obstacles to main- 
tenance; it gains additional space for the garden and ofifer§ no 
end of opportunities for interesting treatment. Unlike the vajgue 
terminus which the grass slope forms, it provides a definite point 
at which to stop the terrace and an opportunity to treat its top with 

[38] 






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A P P R O P R 1 A r E MATERIALS FOR THE 
SIZE AND CHARACTER 

"Weld," Garden of Mr. Larz Anderson, Brookline, Massa- 
chusetts. Charles A. Piatt, Architect 

[39] 



The Livable Ho 



u 



a balustrade or railing or planting, for some form of coping 
is desirable to give a finish to the terrace and prevent the "falling- 
off" feeling one has in the absence of such a boundary. Unfor- 
tunately walls are costly of construction and must often for this 
reason be supplanted by grass terraces. But wherever it is pos- 
sible, walls should be given the preference and welcomed as 
opportunities for adding interest to the garden. The picture of 
"Huntland" would be stupid indeed if the series of dry walls were 
to be replaced by grass banks, and a slope of turf would make but 
a poor background to Mr. Piatt's garden in place of the walled 
terrace with its pleasing iron rail. 

Good use is made of retaining walls in connection with the 
houses designed by Mr. Grosvenor Atterbury at Forest Hills, 
Long Island. Here each house has but a small door-yard, three 
or four feet above the level of the sidewalk. Instead of terracing 
this down to the sidewalk — the usual treatment for such yards — a 
wall built back, a foot or two from the edge of the walk in order 
to leave space for planting at its base, takes care of the difference 
in levels, increases by a few feet the size of the front yard, and 
adds immeasurablv to its attractiveness both inside and outside the 
wall. 

A choice of materials for the retaining wall would inevitably 
be influenced by the two factors: appropriateness, both to the style 
of house and the kind of garden, and availability, which is bound 
up with the circumstances of cost. It goes without saying that 
a wall of fine cut ashlar work would be out of place in a small, 
unpretentious garden, and that, on the other hand, rough field 

[40] 



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[41] 



The Livable House 

stone would be poorly suited to a formal garden of the size and 
character of "Weld." The garden is tied to the house and made 
a part of it, or alienated from it as much by the materials used in 
construction work as by any other one factor, and those of the 
house should at least be recalled in some way in the garden. 
The retaining wall of the terrace at the Knickerbocker Country 
Club is a continuation of the foundation wall of the house con-, 
structed of native sandstone, whitewashed; and the marble treads 
and brick risers of the steps are similar to those of the porch. In- 
cidently, this offers an example of a happy combination of several 
materials. 

In a country like the blue stone regions of Pennsylvania or the 
granite hills of New England, stone suggests itself as the natural 
material for walls, although even where it is so plentiful it is un- 
happily not always the cheapest material. A stretch of Long Is- 
land coast land, on the other hand, with sand or gravel ready to 
hand makes concrete almost imperative. Unfortunately, the sur- 
face of a concrete wall is difficult to treat interestingly, for it has 
a natural flatness of tone that is almost impossible to enliven. 
Leaving the surface unfinished with the marks of the molds upon 
it, plus a generous planting of vines and bushes, constitute the best 
treatment for this kind of wall. A very pleasing surface may be 
got by the application of a coat of stucco, but this brings the cost 
up very nearly, if not entirely, to that of brick. Stucco over hol- 
low tile, where the construction of the house is similar, is a good 
choice of materials. But any stucco or concrete wall needs to be 
combined with some other material such as brick or tile to make 

[42] 



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The Livable H 



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it interesting, and good examples of such combinations are given 
in the chapter on garden architecture. 

Stone walls laid up dry have the advantage of taking on an air 
of age more rapidly than other kinds, and there is no doubt about 
the fact that age, as far as gardens are concerned, is desirable. 
The crevices between stones offer hospitality to moss and rock 
plants, which soften the appearance of the wall and make it as 
much more interesting than a plain surface as is a printed page 
than a blank sheet. 

Sometimes old stone walls, which in former days marked 
cornfields from pasture land on the farms of our grandfathers, 
have been successfully moved with their mosses and lichens to 
contribute the dignity of age to a new garden; but the classic 
example of the man who purchased at a handsome price an old 
moss-covered barn, had each stone wrapped separately and con- 
veyed to the distant spot where he proposed to build his house, 
only to lose these painfully acquired mosses because they did not 
like their new home in the sun, offers a warning to those who 
would beat Nature at her own game. 

The steps which retaining walls necessitate are not always the 
pleasing features of the garden it is possible to make them, prin- 
cipally because they are apt to be too small. Sizes which look 
well in the house are not roomy enough outdoors, for the scale of 
garden work should be much larger than that of house work. A 
room eighteen by twenty-eight feet is considered a fairly large 
room, but a garden eighteen by twenty-eight feet would scarcely 
divide into two flower borders with a path between. Similarly 

[441 



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A GOOD FLIGHT OF STEPS IN A 
RETAINING WALL 

Forest Hills, Lomj Island. Grosvenor Atterbury, Architect 

[45] 



T Ji e Livable House 

twelve to thirteen inches is wide enough for the treads of steps 
indoors, and seven inches not too high for risers; outside the 
treads should be broadened and the heights of risers lessened if an 
agreeable eflfect is to be obtained. A tread fifteen inches wide 
used in conjunction with a six-inch-high riser is a very comfort- 
able allowance; a higher riser is apt to result in a steep looking 
flight of steps. Treads wider than fifteen inches should, 
of course, be used with risers less than six inches, following a 
general rule that the product of the height of the riser and the 
width of tread in inches should be about ninety; the smaller prod- 
uct of seventy-two is adopted for indoor work. 

Breadth is also very essential to the comfortable appearance 
of steps. This should vary with the extent of the wall in which 
the steps occur and the difference in levels, or the length of the 
flight. No rule can be given by which such breadth may be de- 
termined, because it is a matter which feeling for good design 
alone can dictate; but it is safe to say that no steps should be 
made too narrow for two people to walk abreast (which would 
establish a minimum width of four feet), nor so large as to over- 
power the garden to which they lead. 

The wing walls, necessitated by steps which project to any 
extent beyond a wall, are often the means of spoiling the appear- 
ance of the steps. Generally speaking these walls should be kept 
as inconspicuous as possible, for it is easy to make them clumsy 
and heavy. Good architectural treatment of course may turn 
them into truly decorative features, but in any case the angle or 
pocket formed by a projecting flight of steps is awkward — and it 

[46] 



Its Garden 

is best to play safe and sink the steps partially, if not wholly, in- 
side the wall. Especially is this true of a long flight — because 
the appearance of length is greatly increased when the entire 
flight is plainly visible. 



[47] 



G 6 71 er a I Planting 



CHAPTER TWO 

General Planting 

^^^s-^^NDER the head of "General Planting' come all those 
•45. I «(^ miscellaneous kinds of planting: which cannot be in- 
^^•^^% eluded in that of the garden proper. Foundation 
planting, border planting, the planting along drives 
and walks, screen planting, specimen planting, and miscellaneous 
flower planting — all of these are worth discussing separately, 
because very often one of these kinds, or a combination of two 
of them, constitutes all the gardening which is done about a 
place. 

Foundation planting, or the planting about the base of build- 
ings, should have for its purpose not — as the nursery catalogue 
would lead one to believe — masking the foundations, but making 
the house look as if it belonged in its surroundings. There is 
nothing about an honest foundation wall that needs concealing, 
and it is unnecessary and undesirable that the house should grow 
out of a solid bank of shrubbery in order to hide something which, 
as likely as not, the architect has been at some pains to make in- 
teresting. A judicious amount of planting here and there about 
a house — at the corners or in angles, with something tall to carry 
the green line up where there are no windows, and lower growing 

r.5i] 



The Livable House 

things where there are — will take the raw new look away from a 
house and tie it dowai adequately to the lawn's green carpet. 

The first requirement for the right sort of foundation planting, 
and, for the matter of that, the last too, is appropriateness. All 
the other requirements, namely strength, permanence, and proper 
scale, are included in this one term. 

Probably the most common of the inappropriate sorts of 
foundation planting is that which appears to consist of one each 
of all the different kinds of evergreens contained in the nursery- 
man's catalogue. Every suburb and real-estate development 
abounds in houses whose foundations are surrounded with a lot 
of little yellow and green and blue balls, cones, and pyramids, 
which present a bristling, unnatural look and contribute nothing 
of repose or dignity to the house. What could be less appro- 
priate, less calculated to make the house look as if it belonged to 
its particular bit of country, than this collection of "specimen" 
evergreens? "Specimens" is the term which most truly describes 
them, and as such they should be placed in arboretums. An ex- 
clusively evergreen planting is always bad because the trees are 
too decided and definite in form; they need the more graceful, 
branching, deciduous things to tie them together. 

The chief quality on which evergreens rely for their popularity 
— the quality which endears them to most people — is their ever- 
greenness. And, indeed, their color in the winter landscape is 
very desirable, but other colors than green contribute cheer to 
winter's dullness — and shrubs with colored berries and branches 
may be combined with the evergreens into a much more pleasing 

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[53] 



The Livable House 

and natural-looking planting than one of evergreens alone. This 
is true of rhododendrons as well as of conifers, for a house which 
rises up out of a heavy somber bank of broad-leaved evergreens 
fits as poorly into the landscape as one whose base is concealed 
by ranks of little conifers. 

Some of the berried shrubs which add to the agreeable appear- 
ance of a foundation planting, as much by their graceful habit 
of branching as by their colored fruits, are the barberries — Thun- 
bergii and vulgaris; high bush cranberry (viburnum opulus), 
which provides from its bright clusters food for the birds all 
winter long; other members of the viburnum family: dentatum or 
arrow-wood, plicatum, tomentosum, and Carlesii, which has a 
wonderfully fragrant flower; the honeysuckles, Indian currant, 
and snowberry; ilex Sieboldii (a little known but very brilliant 
berried shrub) ; and the red stemmed dogwoods. Of these, ber- 
beris vulgaris, all the viburnums, the honeysuckles, and dogwoods 
grow to be big shrubs and ought therefore to be planted where 
they will not interfere with windows. Another shrub with an 
impossible name but with the unusual possession of turquoise col- 
ored berries is Symplocos Crataegoides. Its berries ripen at the 
same time as those of the Tartarian honeysuckle, and the two 
shrubs make a brilliant combination. Most of these shrubs have 
attractive flowers as well as berries, and thus provide at the same 
time for the summer and winter appearance of the base planting. 
A few shrubs interesting chiefly for their summer dress do not 
come amiss in any group near the house, and some of them look 
especially well with the dark foliage of evergreens: lilacs, white 

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[55] 



The Livable House 

and purple ; deutzia, Pride of Rochester, pink weigelia, and spirea 
Van Houttei are all good stand-bys which improve by their pres- 
ence any planting of evergreens. 

Another danger to be avoided in connection with evergreens 
near the house is the use of forest trees. In most cases, either 
eagerness for a quick effect or ignorance of the real character of 
the trees is responsible for their presence close to the house. But 
whatever the cause, it is not an uncommon sight to see the win- 
dows of houses five years or so old being overgrown by hemlocks, 
w^hite pines, spruces, and firs. These are all big timber trees, and 
for this reason are extremely inappropriate planted against a house 
wall. They belong out where they have room to stretch and grow 
into the dignified trees Nature meant them to be. 

Some of the smaller, less-spreading trees, such as cedars, arbor 
vitae, and retinosporas, may be used against the house if they are 
planted where they will not come in the w-ay of windows. At 
either side of an arch on the W. E. Seeley house at Bridgeport, 
cedars are well placed where they emphasize the entrance and 
will not grow out of bounds. 

Quite at the opposite end of the scale from forest trees are 
flow^ers as a foundation planting, and for a correspondingly oppo- 
site reason they are inappropriate. I refer, as in the case of 
evergreens, to flowers used alone. Some of the stronger growing 
sorts, planted in connection with shrubs or vines, as Miss Coffin 
has used lilies and peonies along the piazza of the Edgar house, 
are both pleasing and appropriate; but the border of pinks and 
pansies or cannas and scarlet sage which very often forms the 

[56] 



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[57] 



The Livable Ho u s e 

sole decoration around the base of a big house is too obvious a 
violation of the requirements of good foundation planting not to 
be censured. 

Flowers alone lack strength and that feeling of permanence 
which good base planting should have, and, moreover, they are 
out of scale with the size of the house. They need shrubs or 
vines as a background to make them count as a mass rather than 
as individuals, and to leave something growing in their stead 
when they die down at the end of the season. 

By the term border planting^the second of the miscellaneous 
sorts under the head of general planting — I mean combinations 
of shrubs, or shrubs and trees, such as one finds planted along a 
fence, substituted for a fence at the edge of a piece of property, 
around a garden, or at the end of the lawn. These borders divide 
themselves into two classes: naturalistic or woodland borders, and 
gardenesque or suburban. 

They are two very different types, and a sharp line should be 
drawn between them, because, in practice, distinguishing the two 
makes all the difi"erence between a commonplace garden and one 
with a really individual quality; or, in bigger landscape work, the 
contrast between a scheme grandly conceived and one which is 
petty in spirit. 

The first sort of planting is made up of native trees and shrubs 
• — those which grow naturally along meadow hedgerows or in 
woodland borders; this kind of border should be used away from 
the house and the cultivated garden, in places where a transition 
is to be effected between the wild and the cultivated, or where the 

[58] 



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CEDARS USED PROPERLY NEAR A 
HOUSE WALL 

House of Mr. W. E. Seeley, Bridgeport, Connecticut 
Murphy and Dana, Architects 

[59] 



The Livable House 

spirit of native things is to be introduced or preserved. This 
bigger, freer sort of planting should be founded on the particular 
kind of landscape in which it occurs, and should follow Nature 
as closely as possible. A lowland border would not be composed 
of the same trees and shrubs as would an upland border, nor 
would either of these plantings be the same in Illinois and Massa- 
chusetts. Any naturalistic planting should express the character 
of the land where the border is being planted, so as to bring out 
the individuality of different parts of the country. Discard the 
bad characteristics of your especial piece of property, pick out 
its good, features, and emphasize them, if you wish your garden 
different from your neighbor's, with a quality of its own. 

If you have a stream on your place plant the borders near it 
with those shrubs and trees which grow in the neighborhood of 
water: alder, red-stemmed dogwood, the lacy, yellow-flowered 
spice bush, willows, birches (black and white), elderberry with 
its white panicles of fragrant flowers (which turn into berries that 
make the most delicious pie in the world) , arrow-wood which also 
has white flowers — deceiving white flowers, for they tempt one 
into smelling them and then offer a vile reward; button bush, 
with its shining leaves and white balls — and an indefinite list 
of other friendly things, which like low places better than 
high. 

And then if your border goes up hill, plant in it the shrubs 
which do not mind burning in the sun of a long hot July after- 
noon — sumach, wild roses, hawthorn, crabapple, sassafras, bay- 
berry, red bud, and witch hazel. But above all things, in planting 

[60] 



G 



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AN EXCEPTION TO THE RULE OF NO 

FLOWERS ABOUT THE HOUSE 

FOUNDATION 

Garden of Mrs. J. Clifton Edgar, at Greenwich, Connecticut 
Marian C. Coffin, Landscape Architect 

[6i] 



The Livable House 

such a border as this, keep out the petty gardenesque feeling — one 
weigelia will ruin the character of a whole group of field plants; 
save the nursery shrubs for the flower garden and the planting 
near the house. 

The converse of this warning is not true — any number of na- 
tive shrubs and trees can be introduced into a border of lilacs 
and spireas and altheas, without hurting it in the least; but one 
shrub of this tamed company is enough to dispel the illusion of 
an entire naturalistic planting. The same strict rule is observable 
in connection with evergreens; cedars, white pines, Douglas 
spruce, and other native evergreens take their places very prop- 
erly in woodland plantings, but retinosporas, cryptomerias, golden 
arbor vitae, smack of the nursery — and destroy utterly the free 
spirit of the woods and fields. 

Some landscape architects never get away from the suburban 
type of planting. Their materia niedica, so to speak, consists of 
the contents of the nursery catalogues, and they treat a big park 
just as they would a little garden plot, using over and over again 
barberry, snowberry, forsythia, mock orange, and spireas, with 
perhaps a few native shrubs mixed in, out of deference to a dim 
idea that parks should be planted a little differently from small 
places. But the big conception that country is only to be intro- 
duced into city by means of fidelity to country planting, or that 
the spirit of existing country, its own particular charm, is to be 
preserved only by adherence to the example it sets, quite escapes 
them. A big meadow will never have the feel of a real meadow,, 
will never be anything but an enlarged lawn, unless it be fringed 

[62] 



/ 



G a 



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[63] 



The Livable House 

with true meadow planting; the petty suburban feeling creeps in 
by way of privet and weigelia and deutzia — and the spirit of dog- 
wood and hawthorn (the native kinds, not foreign introduced 
sorts), hazel nut, and sumach is gone. 

I do not mean to be decrying the obvious merits of our faithful 
flowering shrubs; they are very useful and very beautiful, but I 
should like to make it clear that they are essentially of the house 
garden — that they have a tame cat feeling which belongs near the 
house, and that they should be left behind w^ith the house when it 
is the spirit of woods and fields one is trying to recall in planting. 
These principles are true of the elements of planting along drives 
and walks according as the groups of shrubs and trees are near 
the house or remote from it. 

The form which the planting should take depends upon the 
form of the drive or walk. 

The avenue type of planting, that is straight rows of things, 
should be confined to walks or drives which are straight; irregular 
lines demand irregular planting — both as to height and breadth — 
and a drive which twists and curves should not be bordered by 
straight ranks of trees and bushes of even height. 

It is probably unnecessary to say that no drive or walk should 
curve without appearing to curve for a reason, and if it curves 
just for the sake of curving an excuse has to be supplied. Under 
some circumstances it so happens that it is undesirable to fill up 
all the bends of a road with bushes; they are apt to give a shut-in 
feeling to the drive which at certain points is unpleasant. A 
tree or a clump of trees in such a position furnishes the needed ex- 

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[65] 



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cuse for a turn and at the same time does not produce the confining 
effect of a solid mass of bushes. 

The off side, so to speak, of a curve is less important as to plant- 
ing. The group of bushes or trees, if any are used on this side of 
the drive, should consist of kinds similar to those on the opposite 
side, and may be carried back away from the drive in some such 

form as that shown in the dia- 




Diagram 'illustrating planting 
in the bend of a drive 



gram, with low growing stuff 
in front to emphasize the bay, 
and higher growing things be- 
hind. Correspondingly, the 
point on the opposite side 
might be marked by high 
shrubs, although observance 
of the demands of automobil- 
ists who must be able to see 
along the entire length of a 
drive, is fast leveling off all 
border planting. 
There is a purely sentimen- 



tal reason for making the planting in a bend high, to which I, who 
do not mind driving slowly along a curving road, am inclined to 
cling, and that is the pleasure of not knowing what lies just ahead. 
Mystery always has its charm, and I w^ould rather be surprised by 
coming out of a wood suddenly onto a green stretch of lawn than 
know all along that presently we shall be running at the edge of 
the green velvet strip, which I can see across the low bushes. 

[66] 



G 



a 



n 







A CURVING PATH WELL PLANTED 

Garden of Mr. Edward E. Sprague, at Flushing, Long 
Island. Marian C. Coffin, Landscape Architect 

[67] 



The Livable House 

Screen planting, the fourth kind of general planting, may con- 
sist of irregular borders of shrubs and trees, or of hedges. The 
latter are usually regarded as the logical means of screening a 
service drive, or laundry yard, or unneighborly nuisance. They 
are the most obvious form of screen, the form most often used, 
and in some ways the least effective, for their purpose is generally 
as apparent as that of a trellis or wall would be. Like these 
they need planting outside to tie them into the general land- 
scape. 

Any kind of clipped hedge is, of course, slower in attaining 
height than plants which are allowed to grow unchecked by the 
pruning shears. It follows that a free-growing border will screen 
faster and more effectively than a hedge. But the most valid 
reason for giving any irregular planting preference is that it 
can be made a part of the landscape. When a hedge is used either 
for a screen or as the boundary of a garden it should have some- 
thing in the way of transition planting outside it — a few groups 
of shrubs and trees-to break the definite form and regular line of 
the hedge, and to "ease'' it into its surroundings. 

Of the deciduous hedges, probably privet is the most common 
and the most useful. It is obligingly adaptable, grows quickly, 
and has a dignified appearance. Barberry makes a somewhat 
smaller hedge, never growing over four or five feet high, and is 
more spreading in character. Some effort has been made to in- 
troduce hornbeam and beech as hedges. These are both good, 
dignified hedges, and along with our native haw^thorns could 
be utilized delightfully around gardens; but their slow growth 

[68] 



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[69] 



The Livable H 



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and greater cost too often combine to make the weedier privet a 
favorite. 

Among evergreens, more fame attaches to the name of box 
than to any other kind of hedge. It is truly the aristocrat among 
hedges, and an old specimen commands respect and veneration 
from a hurrying generation, which appreciates to the full its 
meager inheritance but fails to provide for its children any more 
generously. 

It is only human to want immediate returns on an investment, 
to plant for an early effect, to be impatient of waiting for results; 
and yet a garden should be planned with some eye to permanence 
as well, and the poplars that go in because of their rapid growth 
should be tempered with timber trees to give dignity to the garden 
a decade hence, and a beech hedge started whenever possible to 
overawe the privet by and by, or one of hawthorn, which will 
cover its twisted old stems with white blossoms in the spring and 
red apples in the fall. 

To return to evergreen hedges, both dwarf arbor vitae and the 
yews (taxus brevifolia and brevifolia cuspidata) make good low 
hedges; and hemlock, arbor vitae, and cedar are all more or less 
dependable high hedges. Of these arbor vitae turns rusty in the 
winter and hemlock sometimes "kills back," but at the height of 
its glory hemlock probably comes nearest to possessing that dark, 
solid green appearance of English yew hedges, which is so much 
the envy of us in our drier climate. 

Ilex — of somewhat doubtful hardihood in Northern winters — ■ 

[70] 



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The Livable House 

trims well into a hedge, and has no other fault than its great ex- 
pense. 

Perhaps a word as to the form to which hedges should be 
trimmed would not come amiss. If the hedge be appreciably 
wider at the top than it is at the bottom it holds the snow in winter, 
which is apt to break apart the bushes, and prevents both moisture 
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The first two are advisable forms to which to shear a hedge, the 

third inadvisable 



ing to the lower portions of the hedge. For these reasons a hedge 
trimmed straight up and down or with a wider base than top, is 
better than one of a wedge shape. 

The term "specimen planting" immediately conjures up pic- 
tures of a lawn spotted over with blue spruces and Japanese red 
maples — and weeping mulberries. This is the sort of planting 
which has attached unpleasant association to the term "specimen 

[74] 



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A SIRAIGHT FLOWER-BORDERED 

WALK 

Estate of Edward E. Sprague, Esq., at Flushing, Long 
Island. Marian C. Coffin, Landscape Architect 

[75] 



The Livable H 



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planting," and all but limited its use to such a meaning. But 
there are appropriate places for specimen trees and bushes of the 
right sort — although there is no place for exotic-looking speci- 
mens but the museum or arboretum. 

The general rule of keeping centers of lawns and open spaces 
clear and confining the planting to borders, with the possible ex- 
ception in the case of big spaces to a very limited number of 
judiciously planted groups, is familiar to every one in this day of 
the ubiquitous garden article. But too rigid an interpretation of 
the rule is apt to result in wall-like borders; these mav be broken 
here and there, and points may be brought out or emphasized by 
the use of individual trees and bushes. Such points as these offer 
opportunities for planting the especially fine bush or tree, the 
good qualities of which one wishes to exhibit. 

The corners of flower beds, doorways and gates, avenues — such 
prominent places as these call for the picked or specimen plant. 

Using specimen in the sense of any chosen or carefully selected 
thing, there is another sort of specimen planting which is valu- 
able — that of the tree or bush chosen for its interesting, rather 
than its perfect, form. One example — the very delightful foun- 
tain at Forest Hills Gardens — will serve to illustrate the charm 
contributable by a gnarly twisted specimen which has the pleas- 
ing look of just happeiTJng. 

The terrace of the Hoyt house at Southampton has several sets 
of very pleasing specimens : the old Paulownia trees on either side 
of the steps, the yews and the hydrangeas. Incidentally this 
planting is peculiarly suitable to the type of architecture. The 

[76] 



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[77] 



The Livable House 

coarse leaves of the trees, the showy flowers of the hydrangeas, and 
the evergreens have a luxuriant efifect which is especially appro- 
priate with the stucco, Italian house. 

There are certain sorts of flower plantings which come under 
no general head, and are pleasures to the eye, others which are 
just messy and purposeless. Of the first, one of the most pleasing 
kinds is spring bulbs naturalized in grass. Nothing is lovelier 
than narcissus and Virginia cowslip blooming in stretches of 
white and blue — or the little grape hyacinth flashing its blue near 
the yellow dandelion which flowers at the same time — or masses 
of purple hyacinths and golden daffodils. 

Other flowers, for the most part native ones, are good natural- 
ized in bold groups, or planted in, here and there with shrubbery. 
For the latter kind of planting, flowers which are woodland in 
character or strong growing flowers are best: foxgloves, colum- 
bines, echinops — the showy orange helenium, asters, boltonia, 
monkshood — are all more or less colorful in a border of shrubs, 
for they flower in sufiicient masses to make themselves felt. 

But most flowers should be collected into a flower garden, 
however small it may be, rather than be scattered about in promis- 
cuous beds and borders. They count for more arranged together 
in this way because it is possible to get bigger stretches of color 
at once. The flowers can be cared for more easily and profitably, 
and the chances are they leave the rest of the place looking tidier 
and less cluttered. A wavy border of perennials following the 
outlines of a shrub border is rarely a success, for the flower bor- 
ders are seldom wide enough to count, and they succeed only in 

[78] 



G a r d 



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imparting a ragged look to the shrubs. A straight border against 
a hedge, if the place is not large enough for a garden, or a wide 
border along a walk, is more efifective than the wavy ribbon of a 
curving border following the outlines of shrubs. 

Of flowers about foundation walls I have spoken in the first 
part of this chapter. For garden walls, rules are less rigid; here 
the idea of permanence in planting is not so important, and al- 
though the appearance of the wall and the flower borders both 
benefit by vines and an occasional shrub planted against the wall, 
these are not the necessities demanded by a house wall. The 
planting at the base of the Hubbard pergola is a pleasing com- 
bination of vines, wall surface, and flowers. 

The final test to which any of the kinds of planting listed at the 
beginning of the chapter must be put, is that of appropriateness. 
The object of each especial planting must be considered, the 
purpose for which it is planted, or the atmosphere it is designed to 
produce, and those shrubs, trees, and flowers used which will con- 
tribute to this effect. Types of planting are just as distinct as 
human beings, with personalities as different, and they must be 
arranged w^ith the same care one expends in choosing guests at a 
dinner party, if the effect is to be harmonious and satisfying. 



[79] 



The Flower Garden 



CHAPTER THREE 
The Flower Garden 

%^®^#N the seventeenth century, formal gardening was car- 

M, -r ^ • • • • 

® 1 # ried to such an extreme that the possibilities of even 

^"^©"^^ bedding plants were exhausted. To most of us who 
have seen names of cemeteries and towns, and every- 
thing from a locomotive to the United States flag emblazoned in 
tidy little coleus and begonia plants, it seems improbable that the 
need of even stififer materials with which to execute patterns 
should have been felt. This appears to have been the case, how- 
ever, for colored sand and glass were substituted in beds for 
flowers, and two centuries have not sufliced to live down the un- 
pleasant atmosphere that attached itself to the word formal — 
most people still experience a slight chill when a formal garden 
is referred to — and visions of clipped trees, busts of Caesar and 
Cicero, and gravel paths stretch away toward their mental 
horizons. 

Unfortunately, there is no word which expresses the "laid out" 
quality of the word "formal" — its straight paths and regular 
curves — and at the same time conveys an idea of charm. The 
term "planned garden" is incorrect because a naturalistic garden 
calls for just as much planning as does a formal garden, and 

[83] 



The Livable House 

"geometric" is forbiddingly mathematical. But, with or without 
a name, it is this pleasingly ordered flower garden I am going to 
write about first — the naturalistic or "studied haphazard" garden 
will come later — and the formal garden, that is the unpleasantly 
formal garden of gravel and bedding plants, can be left out of 
our calculations altogether. 

Probably the most important point in the consideration of the 
first kind of garden is its location; this, it goes without saying, 
should be near the house, or, if it cannot be near the house, it 
should be definitely ofif by itself, away from it. Some houses, 
especially those of the latter part of the Victorian period — high- 
stooped houses with meaningless porches, and poorly arranged 
rooms — never could be conveniently opened into a garden. For 
these the flower garden should be a separate, independent crea- 
tion, with the way leading to it made as attractive as possible, 
with its own walls or borders, and its own plan, independent of 
that of the house. But the garden which is planned along with 
the house should be "tied up" to it in some fashion if possible — 
perhaps the entrance to the garden may be through a sun porch, 
perhaps the first flower beds border a paved terrace intimately, 
perhaps the paths run out from long windows or doors of the 
house and form flower-bordered vistas for its occupants; in any 
case the ideal garden picks up the lines of the house and continues 
them in its own, for this formalistic garden is of the house and its 
belongings; it dispenses with the roof and modifies the walls to 
let in sunshine and air, and substitutes flowers that are alive for the 
painted ones of silks and chintzes. In enlarging the scale of the 

[84] 



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house, however, it does not lose the intimate feeling of a living- 
room, but merely adds to it the free spirit of outdoors. This 
is accomplished by two factors: the first, walling the garden in; 
the second, proper proportion. 

Walls used in this sense do not have to be of brick or concrete 
— a shrub border, a high hedge, the house wall, anything which 
confines the garden and limits the view, serves the purpose. Al- 
most all of us can recall gardens set in the midst of a great lawn, 
or lying in the foreground of a distant view, and can remember 
feeling vaguely that there was something wrong with the garden, 
even though the flowers were very lovely. And the reason for our 
discontent was the looseness of the garden, its loss of scale by com- 
parison with such great distance, its inefifectiveness. 

Some sort of wall for this same garden would have transformed 
it no doubt — and increased its interest a hundredfold. 

In the process of walling in the garden it is not necessary to 
shut out every prospect — to leave no distant views at all — the 
garden wall should contain windows even as the house wall does. 
Views glimpsed through a frame of trees, or a gateway, are ever 
so much more inviting than panoramas, because they lure us on 
with a promise instead of satisfying us at a glance. 

The boundary around the Hubbard garden is a delightful com- 
bination of garden wall and picture frame; it ties the garden in 
without shutting out entirely the surroundings and limits it with- 
out confining it. 

Proper proportion within the flower garden, the second factor 
which is responsible for its atmosphere of friendliness, relates to 

[86] 



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AN ANTE ROOM lO THE GARDEN 

House at Villa Nova, Pennsylvania. Duhring, Okie and 
Ziegler, Architects 

[87] 



The Livable House 

sizes of beds, paths, stretches of green, etc. Even though one has 
conscientiously built a wall around the garden, narrow beds or 
small flowers, lost in a sea of green grass, will still leave it with a 
big loose feeling, or too many flowers and narrow paths make it 
cramped. Beds must be of sufficient size so that the flowers will 
count in masses, and paths should be wide enough so that two 
people may walk abreast on them. Half the fun of a garden is 
showing it to some one else — -and to have to walk through it single 
file is as uncomfortable as having to pass down a narrow hall side- 
wise for fear of scraping one's elbows. 

Four feet six inches is the minimum width which will allow 
two people to walk comfortably side by side, and a flower bed 
which is narrower than seven feet used in connection with such 
a path is apt to look thin and tenuous. Ten feet is in better pro- 
portion. Small dooryard gardens and box gardens are exceptions 
to this rule, and the paths of such gardens may be three feet or 
even narrower. 

In a larger garden a lot of small beds cut up by as many paths 
riiake the garden a restless place, just as numerous little rugs on 
the floor of a room spoil its repose and dignity. Big masses of 
flowers and paths wide enough to be in proportion are essentials, 
if a garden is to be comfortable and livable — and at the same 
time pictorially worth while. 

A stretch of green in the garden with the beds grouped about it 
is a good plan to adopt, when lawn space about the grounds is 
limited, or when for any reason the garden is apt to have a shut-in 
feeling. In any case the scheme rightly handled is a good one 

[88] 



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Plan of the Garden of Mr. Aymar Embury II, 
Architect, Englewood, New Jersey 



and makes for repose and spaciousness; an all-over pattern, on the 
other hand, is apt to be less pleasing for reasons which are hard to 
analyze. Perhaps because it tends to be complicated and rest- 
less, perhaps because it easily becomes cramped in feeling — in any 
case it is well to make paths wide and beds spacious at the ex- 
pense of numbers in such a garden, for nothing so reduces the 
apparent size of a garden as paths that are too narrow. 

Three examples of the central stretch of turf type of garden, 
each one differently handled, are Mr. Marshall Fry's, Mr. 
Michael Jenkins', and Mr. Jonathan Godfrey's gardens. Each 
one of these, I venture to say, would seem smaller and less repose- 
ful if the same spaces were covered all over with flower beds and 

[90] 



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[91] 



The Livable House 

paths. At the same time the very crowdedness of things in the 
picture of Mr. Aymar Embury's garden is not without its charm. 

The paths of either type of garden, however, must have a pur- 
pose, must lead somew^here — around the garden and in and out — 
for a path with a blind end, a path along which one walks only 
to turn about and retrace one's steps, always contains disappoint- 
ment. 

Next in importance, after the location and design of the garden, 
comes the arrangement of flowers. I am sorry to say that al- 
most every one is prone to look upon the flowers as of paramount 
importance. It is true that sheets of bloom will conceal a great 
many defects in design; but the flowers are passing, and may be 
changed at any time, whereas a garden once laid out is often im- 
possible to alter. 

Color and season are the two factors in flower arrangement 
which must be considered simultaneously. If one has planned to 
have no red in the garden at the same time pink flowers are in 
bloom, it is disconcerting to have the scarlet of oriental poppies 
flaunt itself in the face of a rose pink peony. Red is, in any event, 
the greatest trouble maker in the garden, and when one has made 
up one's mind to have the warmth of this color everything else 
must be planned around it; moreover, no two reds are alike, and a 
red garden must consist almost wholly of one flower or at least 
of the one which happens to be in bloom at the moment. Con- 
sternation is in store for the jumbler of reds — one has only to 
think of the cardinal of lobelia, and the good honest turkey red of 
scarlet sage ablaze at once to realize this. 

[92] 



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A GARDEN WITH A NATURAL FOREST 
BACKGROUND 

Estate of Mr. Charles W. Hubbard, at Weston, Massachusetts 
Olmsted Brothers, Landscape Architects 

[93] 



The Livable House 

The fewer the varieties of any color in a garden, the greater 
are the pictorial effects obtainable, and a good plan to follow is 
to pick out a succession of twos, which will be blooming at once, 
and plant the garden all round with groups of these. For ex- 
ample, a succession consisting of the following pairs : pink peonies 
and blue anchusa, yellow coreopsis and the resplendent blue lark- 
spur, purple spikes of veronica and pink phlox, lavender asters 
and bronze dahlias, provides the garden with a series of color 
combinations which should be very lovely from May until frost; 
the overlapping of seasons — for of course some few flow^ers of 
each group will come into bloom before the preceding group is 
done, and the coreopsis and larkspur will flowxr more or less all 
summer — will furnish the garden with a sufficient amount of va- 
rietv to offset the main mass of bloom. These combinations may 
be varied infinitely: salmon pink oriental poppies with their silky 
flapping leaves are lovely with the blue of Italian alkanet; and the 
prickly lavender balls of echinops are pretty with a deep salmon 
phlox. 

White is always good, even in a garden which sets out to con- 
fine itself to rigid color combinations; in fact, it may be used to 
furnish the body or warp, so to speak, of the pattern; white phlox, 
or shasta daisies, or gypsophila, woven in all through a garden of 
two contrasting colors adds a lightness to the whole picture w^hich 
is pleasing to the eye. 

In any arrangement of few^ varieties such as this, the same 
groups should be repeated all along a border — or at intervals the 
whole w^ay round a garden — so that when peonies and anchusa 

[94] 



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GENERAL PLAN TORfLOWEgGARPEJI 




Plan of the garden of Mr. Charles W. Hubbard, at Weston, 
Massachusetts. Olmsted Brothers, Landscape Architects 

[95] 



The Livable House 

are in bloom, peonies and anchusa flower all over the garden and 
not just in one portion; or when phlox and veronica are in season 
the whole garden is aglow with purple and pink. 

In a garden of many varieties a somewhat different arrange- 
ment must be adopted so that the flowers will not have a scatter- 
ing appearance. More varieties necessitate fewer flowers of a 
kind, and these must be planted in groups big enough to count as 
masses; and the masses, moreover, must drift into one another and 
not have the appearance of blocks. To accomplish this latter ob- 
ject it is necessary to lap the mass of one kind of flower by that of 
another; or, to put it another way, to scatter one group into the 
next. 

Color arrangement of this sort of border is complicated and 
difficult to manage effectively. Miss Gertrude Jekyll, a very able 
writer about English gardens, has taken up very fully in her book 
called "Color in the Flower Garden," the graduation of color in 
a border. Miss Jekyll says that it is possible to plant, beginning 
with yellow through orange and red to pink, purple, violet, and 
blue — and this is undoubtedly true of one of those illimitable 
English borders which seem to stretch away to infinity. Un- 
fortunately American gardens are sadly lacking in borders four- 
teen or fifteen feet wide and three hundred feet long. For the 
most part our gardens are small, and it has been my sad expe- 
rience that some of the vivid zinnias have been just as blighting 
separated from the pink phlox by a patch of white as they would 
have been next door to it. In any garden, all of which is visible 
at once, it is best to limit the flowers to varieties which harmonize, 

[96] 



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[99] 



The Livable House 

and to save all the others for a secret garden, or a cutting garden. 
It is hard to rule out one's favorites and consign them to a general 
mixture, but it becomes necessary when they clash with other 
favorites, and when there is not unlimited space in the main 
garden. 

In arranging flowers with respect lO form, the main thing to re- 
member is that a general uniformity in character and size of plants 
is undesirable. Low things need to be broken occasionally by 
taller plants, large leaves contrasted with small, and fine lacey 
foliage solidified by coarser-leaved plants. 

The general rule that tall things should be kept to the back of 
the border with lower growing plants in front, ought not to be 
enforced to the point of giving the plants an appearance of tier 
arrangement. The hollyhocks and boltonia and foxgloves should 
run forward here and there into the phlox and sweet William, in 
order to break up their too even line, and the blue bells and for- 
get-me-nots would sufifer no harm from an intrusion of the phlox 
and sweet William. 

An occasional shrub or bush rose, if the border be very wide 
or over long, is pleasing among the flow^ers, and used at the corners 
of flower beds it acts as an accent and contributes strength, where 
strength is desirable. 

Some regard for appropriateness in character should be exer- 
cised in flower planting even in the formal garden. For example, 
plants which recall something of the feeling which belongs to 
watersides should grow near a pool. Iris and grasses are 
reminders of streams; so are blue forget-me-nots, the brilliant 

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WATERSIDE PLANTS GROWING NEAR 
A FORMAL POOL 

Garden of Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney, at Westbury, Long 
Island. Delano and Aldrich, Architects 

[103] 



The Livable House 

cardinal flower, ferns, purple iron weed, tall marsh mallows, and 
the rosy Joe pie weed. It is surprising how at home these plants 
are in the garden proper among their more aristocratic com- 
panions, and how much of real charm — a charm which is due to 
their appropriateness — they lend to the water near which they 
grow. 

If the pool is to have a really friendly feeling, the planting 
should extend in places to the water's edge. Nothing is colder 
and less inviting than a stone-rimmed pool set in the midst of 
gravel. It has a harsh, ungracious look, that just a few leaves 
bending over the edge would mitigate, or a stray vine soften. On 
the other hand, it is bad to surround a pool entirely with flowers 
and shrubs so as to make it inaccessible. Places for planting near 
the border should be incorporated in the design in some such way 
as to provide walks to the water's edge, and intervals between, for 
iris or ferns or grasses. 

Planting for the surfaces of the water itself needs care and 
thought for appropriateness, as well as regard for scale. More 
often than not pools too small to warrant such huge leaves are 
planted with lotus, or tall cat-tails, or both, when their size really 
demands the smallest of the nymphaeas and the fine leaves of spike 
rush or Scirpus. Most aquatics grow rapidly and unless they are 
constantly thinned out they cover the entire water surface and 
leave no mirror to reflect bending purple flags, and white clouds. 
With a little taste and care in thinning, the groups of lily pads 
and grasses may be made into compositions interesting and pleas- 
ing in themselves. 

[104] 



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WATER LILY PADS WHICH LEAVE A 

PLEASING WATER SURFACE 

OPEN FOR REFLECTIONS 

House of Mr. Thomas H. Kerr, at White Plains, New 
York. Albro and Lindeberg, Architects 

[105] 




FALLS AT THE END OF THE 
SWIMMING POOL 

Estate of Mr. K. D. Alexander, at Spring Station, 
Kentucky. Jens Jensen, Landscape Architect 

[io6] 



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A TERRACE GARDEN WITH A POOL 
AGAINST THE WALL 

Grounds of Mr. H. H. Rogers, at Tuxedo, New York 
Walker and Gillette, Architects 

[107] 



T h 



L i V a b I 



H o u s 



The aquatics in the average pool should consist of hardy varie- 
ties which may be bedded in the pool bottom itself, rather than the 
tender sorts which for cultural reasons have to be planted in pots. 
The pots are too apt to show through the water, and introduce an 
artificial quality which detracts from the grace of the pool. 

Fitness, which is only a synonym for appropriateness, depends 
in pool planting, as in all other kinds, upon attention to details 
which will emphasize the character of the area to be planted — ■ 
details which will contribute to the effect to be produced. In a 
rock garden alpines are appropriate, plants which naturally make 
their homes in the scant pockets of earth between rocks, and if the 
stones are not large one uses the smaller flowering and smaller 
foliaged plants, reserving those with coarse leaves and large flow- 
ers for the garden which can boast boulders. Similarly, about a 
pool, however formal its character, those things should grow 
which emphasize the feeling of water, and if the pool is a large 
one the flowers and shrubs may be correspondingly big, whereas, 
if it is small, they must not reduce its size still more by too great 
contrast. 

The location of a pool in the design of a garden is something 
about which it is hard to generalize. Lying out in an open space 
of turf or gravel, the pool is apt to lose scale, to flow away on all 
sides and become insignificant. Moreover, such a position is 
likely to preclude any planting about the pool — and half the inter- 
est of water in the garden is due to the things which grow near it. 
Bending over it and dipping down into it, they give it warmth and 
friendliness and life. At the same time it is pleasant to be able to 

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walk all around a pool, to see it from different vantage points — 
and to come up to its edge in places. The free standing pool as 
well as the wall fountain type of pool should be designed so as to 
provide for planting spaces about the edge. 

Of informal gardens there are two sorts: the "studied haphaz- 
ard" garden, and the pure naturalistic garden. Mr. Henry V. 
Hubbard makes the distinction between the two by saying that the 
design of the first "consists in informal masses arranged with no 
particular attempt at naturalness, to make a pictorial composition, 
and on the other hand, informal masses arranged to give this pic- 
torial effect, but also to look as though they were organized by 
some of the laws of untrammeled Nature.'' The first sort of gar- 
den is illustrated at its best in the picture and plan of the Bedford 
Hill garden. The planting is so arranged as to form a vista em- 
phasizing the delightful view, and the dark foliage of evergreens 
is an effective background for the flower masses. If all "infor- 
mal" gardens were as successful as this one, I should be unquali- 
fiedly converted to the type, but I am bound to say of this kind of 
informal garden in general that it seems to me to have no place 
in real garden art. It is a mongrel kind of garden, an in-between 
type — something that is neither formal nor naturalistic, but just a 
compromise. It usually means that its owner has told himself 
he does not want a "formal" garden, but — unwilling to give up all 
the nursery plants of man's making which have no place in a truly 
naturalistic garden — he has made this half-way garden, which is 
neither one thing nor the other. It seems to me that it is much 
better art to put these hybrid flowers and shrubs into a frankly 

[112] 



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Plan of a country place at Bedford Hills, Neiv York 



"laid-out'' garden, where, in their off seasons, they will not look 
like a ragged fringe to a shrubbery border; and then, if one wishes 
an informal garden, to build one which is truly naturalistic, with 
as much of the spirit of woods and fields as it is possible for art to 
capture. 

This sort of garden should be remote, or at least seem to be re- 
mote, from houses and artificial things, and these may be banished 
by means of tall planting or grading or a combination of both. 

[113] 



The Livable 



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[115] 



The Livable House 

Probably the only way to get the right sort of atmosphere into 
a naturalistic garden is to study the country around it and adopt 
native characteristics; that is, the good characteristics. The bad 
ones should be discarded and the good ones emphasized, for this 
is the only way to preserve the individuality of each particular 
bit of country. 

If you are making a naturalistic pool down on Long Island, or 
in any portion of the country where no rocky streams are to be 
found, resist the temptation to import rocks and boulders to put 
along the edge of the pond. Make it true to the type of pool 
which occurs in the neighborhood; let the grass run down to the 
water's edge, broken at intervals by clumps of iris and tall grasses, 
Sagittarius and button bush, with cedars and black alders and 
dogwood to form a background. But if the streams and pools 
near your house are rocky, stones may border the water's edge 
with perfect propriety. Be careful to have the majority of them 
big stones — or the water's edge will look cluttered and restless. 
Ferns tucked in among the rocks, and wild grape vines spreading 
leafy layers over their surfaces, will help fit the rocks into the 
land, and an occasional tree or bush growing out of a crevice may 
be made to have the casual charm of a ^'happen-so." 

Mr. Hubbard's Newport rock garden is a delightful bit of truly 
naturalistic gardening, and the remarkable thing about it is that 
the picture was taken only three weeks after its creation. 

Another unusually good piece of rock work is that of the Alex- 
ander garden at Springfield, Kentucky. Mr. Jensen's versatility 
in bringing out the individual qualities of totally difTferent parts 

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of the country is illustrated in this and his handling of the Rubens 
water garden, which shows the marshy planting of the prairies. 

No vegetation is quite so markedly characteristic of its habitat 
as that which grows near water. The grassy leaves of cat-tails, 
spike rush and iris, the luxuriant marsh mallow and swamp milk- 
weed, bending willows, alders and birches, all have a quality 
which is associated very definitely in our minds with streams and 
ponds, or brooks and marshes. On the other hand, such nursery 
shrubs as lilac, weigelia, golden bell, and deutzia belong to the 
tamed company of the house garden — hollyhocks and nasturtiums 
are quite appropriate among these, but in the naturalistic garden 
they introduce a gardenesque note which is altogether out of tune 
with the native chorus. 

The principle of adhering closely to native forms and plant 
materials is not confined to water gardens, but applies as w^ell to 



Jl -P/ao t/op fJorj /on tfye fiool 
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Plan for the Pool Estate of H. Rubens, Glencoe, Illinois 

[ii8] 



Its Garden 

rock gardens, or woodland gardens of other sorts. In order to be 
convincingly naturalistic to charm us into thinking we have 
stepped out of the world into a lovely bit of Nature's gardening, 
we rnust follow her suggestions and use the materials she pro- 
vides. 



[119] 



Times and Seasons 



CHAPTER FOl^R 

Times and Seasons 

^^•^^^ HERE are as many theories about proper times for 

^ I -^ planting as there are nurserymen and gardeners. Al- 

S^ ^^ 

#^*^^^ most every one has his own pet ideas about the best 

season for moving this tree or that, based, of course, 
upon individual experience, but almost every one agrees on the 
two main seasons of spring and fall as the periods of greatest ac- 
tivity in transplanting. The purpose in moving plants at these 
two times is to catch them while they are in a more or less dormant 
state — in the spring before the sap has started up from the roots, 
and in the fall after the plant has ceased to grow for the season. 
It follows that it is desirable to move in the fall all those things 
which start into life very early in the spring, and at the latter 
season the more sluggish things which are slower in responding 
to "the urge of spring." In the first class are such shrubs as 
honeysuckle, lilac, and spiraea, together with dogwood and for- 
sythia, whose flower buds for the next spring are all set in the 
autumn. These plants begin to grow very early in the spring, 
and if they have established themselves in the fall they will be 
ready to grow uninterruptedly when spring sunshine sends the 
sap up from their roots. 

Fall planting of deciduous shrubs and trees may be started as 

[123] 



The Livable House 

soon as the leaves have fallen and continued until freezing weather 
makes the ground unworkable. The sooner the plants are moved 
after they have lost their leaves, however, the better, because root 
growth does not cease with leaf growth and the plants should have 
as much opportunity to get established before the ground hardens 
as possible. 

Some shrubs or trees are moved with greater difficultv than 
others, and it is wisest to defer planting these until spring; birches 
and lombardv poplars are among this companv — the latter fre- 
e]uentlv kill back if they are moved in the fall, to one-half of their 
height or more. Magnolias moved late in the fall are apt to be 
unsuccessful, as are also most of the oaks, which at best are none 
too easy to move. But aside from a few exceptions such as these, 
the great body of deciduous shrubs and trees can be moved as well 
in the fall as in the spring, and the rush of the spring garden 
work greatlv lessened thereby. 

The autumn season for transplanting evergreens begins sooner 
than that for deciduous trees, because the former cease leaf growth 
for the season earlier. From the last of August onward ever- 
greens mav be safelv moved, and although my personal prefer- 
ence is to finish the evergreen planting as early in the fall as pos- 
sible, I have planted both conifers and broad-leaved evergreens 
in December without loss. Care in preserving the roots, packing 
the earth firmlv about them, and a protecting mulch of leaves or 
straw will go far toward insuring the life of these plants. 

Winter planting for trees both deciduous and evergreen is also 
practiced successfully. The trees are prepared for this sort of 

[124] 



Its Garden 

moving by means of a root pruning machine which cuts around 
underneath the tree. The ball thus cut is allowed to freeze solid, 
when the entire mass is moved to its new home, packed into place, 
and guyed with ropes. 

Roses may be planted during the autumn season as well as in 
spring, but they should be well protected. Hilling the earth up 
eight or ten inches about the plants will shed water, which in 
winter is the damaging element to roses — and an additional pro- 
tection of leaves or straw over the hills will keep the plants from 
alternately freezing and thawing. 

There is always the danger that roses and perennials will be 
eaten ofi by mice and other vermin which burrow beneath the pro- 
tective layers of straw and leaves; against these pests outdoors, 
traps and cats and ''Paris green" are of little avail. 

Most of the hardy perennials are best planted in the fall — be- 
cause they start to grow very early in the spring, and interrupting 
this growth by the process of transplanting means practically a 
season's set back to the plants. The work should be begun in 
August, however, and ended if possible by the first of November. 

Lilies and Dutch bulbs, in which latter term are included 
tulips, narcissi, hyacinths, crocus, squills, chionodoxa, etc., like- 
wise need to be planted in the fall, for outdoor work. 

Spring planting of trees and shrubs may be done as soon as suf- 
ficient frost is gone to leave the ground workable; it is very de- 
sirable although not absolutely necessary to accomplish it before 
the leaves come out, because if the planting is done after the leaves 
arrive they wither and drop, and while the bush or tree is form- 

[125] 



The Livable House 

ing new ones it presents a discouragingly dead appearance. In 
fact it is just at this stage of things that most new gardeners lose 
heart — when they see the thrifty looking bushes and trees they 
bought from the nurseryman, or had moved from some flourish- 
ing hedgerow, looking like so many dead sticks. Probably no 
other art exacts so much in the way of patience and faith from its 
followers for the first few difficult years, as gardening. Moving 
stock, especially stock which has attained any size at all, involves 
a shock to the plant from which it requires time and demands in- 
telligent care to recover, and everything which can be done to 
help it establish itself is worth doing. Just sticking it in the 
ground and leaving it to its own devices will sometimes work all 
right, where the ground is exceptionally good, and moisture is 
plentiful, and the plant has a good root system with which to 
start. But it is very seldom that any plant is started under such 
a set of circumstances, and to "insure good results" it must be 
watered, and mulched, and sprayed where insect pests are trou- 
blesome, and this done not once, but recurrently throughout the 
first year or two, after transplanting, or until it has had time to 
adapt itself to new conditions. 

These conditions are made more difficult by untimely planting, 
which entails a proportionate amount of extra care if the plants 
are to live. Moved after the leaves are out when the hot suns of 
June have come and the reviving rains of spring have gone, they 
can hardly be expected to bloom and flourish. The best they can 
do is to struggle along against the odds of their first year and hope 
for a second spring to give them a new lease on life. 

[126] 



Its Garde n 

Nurserymen, within the past few years, have lengthened some- 
what the spring planting season for a limited number of plants, 
by preparing pot-grown stock, which can withstand late moving 
better than field grown stock; vines, small shrubs, roses, peren- 
nials, and a few evergreens are included in this list. They are 
valuable chiefly as ''fillers-in," to be used where unsightlv holes 
must be concealed; although their root systems are more or less 
prepared for transplanting, they are subject to the same difficulty 
in establishing themselves against adverse atmospheric conditions^ 
such as hot suns and little rain, as field grown plants. 

Perennials planted in the spring will be later in flowering, other 
conditions being equal, than those which get their start the fall 
before; and some early flowering ones such as peonies, trilliums, 
and mertensia will not flower at all for a year if they are moved 
in the spring. 

Seeds of annuals and bedding plants are sown in spring in the 
open ground, or, if one wishes to get them into bloom earlier, they 
may be started in the house during February and transplanted into 
the open as soon as danger from frost is past. 

Gladiolas, cannas, and dahlias should be planted outdoors about 
the end of May, when the earth has "warmed up" a bit, and frosts 
are over. 

Bulbs, which are to be replaced after their flowering season by 
annuals or bedding plants, must be allowed to ripen, that is, left 
until the leaves die down, before they are removed. Such bulbs, 
of course, may be saved and replanted the following fall. 

Times and seasons for pruning vary with different plants and 

[127] 



The Livable House 

with the results one wishes to produce. All deciduous shrubs and 
trees should be pruned at transplanting, because the root system is 
reduced in the process of moving, and the evaporating surface of 
leaves and branches should be cut down correspondingly. The 
extent of this pruning depends upon the amount of damage done 
to the root system, but it is advisable to cut back deciduous shrubs 
at least half, upon transplanting, and trees to about one-fourth 
of the last year's growth. Evergreens, which are usually moved 
with a ball of earth and which have in consequence better pre- 
served root systems, require to be pruned sparingly, or not at all. 
Cedars and retinosporas may have the greater part of the last 
season's growth removed, most broad-leaved evergreens will flour- 
ish without pruning, and if one wishes to induce the pines to a 
bushier habit of growth, the central one of the terminal buds may 
be pinched out. This means that instead of growing greatly in 
length, the branches will develop their side buds and become 
thicker. 

Beyond this pruning at transplanting time, shrubs and trees 
should be allowed to develop normally with no restraint from the 
pruning shears except an occasional thinning out of dead wood. 
The custom of annual pruning of flowering shrubs when every 
bush is gone over and chopped back to a uniform height or round- 
ness is a very pernicious one. It is of no benefit at all to the 
plant, it destroys the natural and beautiful form of the shrub, and 
reduces it to an ugly, heavy mass. When the shrubs once have a 
good start they should be left to their own devices, except for the 
removal of broken branches or old worn out ones. Pruning of 

[128] 



Its Cj a r d e n 

this sort should be done, for early flowering shrubs such as lilac, 
mock orange, bridal wreath, and golden bell, just after the flower- 
ing season is over. These shrubs flower on wood which was de- 
veloped the season before, and if they are cut back in the winter 
or early spring, it follows that the flowering branches may be 
lost; whereas if they are cut in the early summer, the shrub has 
time to develop new wood and new flower buds before fall. 

Late flowering shrubs, on the other hand, such as rose of sharon, 
hydrangea, and some of the spireas, may be pruned in the spring, 
because their flowers are produced on wood of the same season's 
growth. 

Roses, although they are early flowering, should be pruned in 
the spring, as soon as the frost is out of the ground. With Hybrid 
Perpetuals, all the old wood, that is the wood which flowered last 
year, should be cut out and from three to six of the strongest 
shoots produced last year left. These should be cut back to 
within eight or twelve inches of the ground. Hybrid Teas, on 
the other hand, should be pruned somewhat less severely; with 
these the dead and weak shoots should be cut out, and the strongest 
shoots shortened from four to six inches. The tall shoots of Ram- 
bler or Climbing roses may be cut back and the dead branches cut 
out. If the plants are thin and straggly they may be greatly bene- 
fited by shearing back to either three or four inches of the base. 

Almost all roses are grafted, and very frequently the bush sends 
up "suckers'' from below the graft, which absorb all the nourish- 
ment of the plant. These shoots should be removed as soon as 
they appear, and they may be identified by the fact that they have, 

[129] 



The Livable H 



o u 



as a rule, from seven to nine leaflets, whereas the budded stock has 
usually but five. 

Hedges and plants trained to a formal shape need to be cut 
several times during the season rather than just once in spring. 
A spring pruning stimulates them into sending up a lot of little 
shoots which leave the plant with a more or less ragged appearance 
for the summer, and these shoots need to be cut back two or three 
times during the season, depending upon the rapidity of growth. 

The pruning of fruit trees is a science about which it is dan- 
gerous to generalize. Each tree, bush, and vine needs careful, 
individual treatment, because the fruit is not borne the same way 
on all of them, and for a thorough and reliable treatise on the sub- 
ject of pruning fruit trees there is no better authority than Mr. 
Liberty Hyde Bailey's ''Pruning Book." The matter is here 
taken up in all its branches, and in a sufficiently popular way to 
be understandable by the layman who knows nothing about 
botany. 



[130] 



Garden Architecture 



CHAPTER FIVE 

Garden Architecture 

4'^'i^'^'^HE architectural features of the garden — its arbors, 

¥^^>^ . 

"^ I #• gateways, fountains, and walls — are not only important 

)sH M " . 

•^s*^*^^^ sources of interest in themselves, but the means of com- 
pleting the garden, of rounding it out, and giving it a 
finished appearance. A path which leads one through a gate is 
ever so much pleasanter a wav to take than one which has no such 
inviting barrier, and a vista which is terminated is more delight- 
ful than one which dwindles off with no object of interest to hold 
the eye at its end. Even the flowers for which a garden chiefly 
exists take on a charm and elusiveness they do not possess of them- 
selves, when they are glimpsed through the posts of the plainest 
grape arbor or seen through the frame of an arch. It is a certain 
pictorial quality w^hich good architecture contributes to the gar- 
den and which flow^ers and shrubs alone lack, as well as an inter- 
esting human note introduced by it, that make it an important 
consideration in planning a garden. 

Such intangible benefits are not easily explained to the man or 
woman who has no interest in architecture itself, but the many 
photographs in this chapter w^ill express in more concrete form, I 
hope, the value of good architectural detail in the garden. 

[133] 



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[134] 



Its Garden 

The photographs of two gates at Forest Hills illustrate how 
pleasing an ordinary dooryard walk may be made, by some form 
of gateway to mark its departure from the road, and the gates 
themselves are harmonious details in the general scheme of 
English cottage architecture. 

The very original gateway to the Pomeroy place opens into a 
lane of lilacs that has almost the effect of pleaching. With an 
entrance made as attractive as this for introduction, the newcomer 
is prepared to be pleased with the entire place. 

Both sides of Mrs. Hill's garden doorway at Easthampton are 
equally charming.^ The whole wall, in fact, has a delightfully 
spontaneous quality in its design — an unstudied simplicity which 
professional work is apt to lose to technique. The use of rough 
surfaced concrete for the wall is very good and surprisingly inter- 
esting, for as a rule concrete without brick or tile or some other 
contrasting material to relieve its deadness is very unattractive. 
The breaks in line, together with the rough surface, the thatched 
house and the pergola, combine to give the wall variety and inter- 
est. Incidentally there is a kind of fundamental fitness about this 
wall — it is apparently, as well as actually, a part of the low sand 
hills of the coast-land round about "the Hamptons." 

A happy combination of materials, as well as charm of design, 
is illustrated in the wall and gateway of "Huntland," where brick 
posts and a molded brick cap furnish a contrast to the stucco sur- 
face. A similar office is performed bv the stone coigns and cap 
of the gateway at the Winthrop place. 

1 See the group of illustrations at the end of this chapter. 

[135] 



The Livable House 




A GATEWAY WHICH MAKES AN ORDI 
NARY PATH INTERESTING 

Forest Hills Gardens, Forest Hills, Long Island 
Wilson Eyre, Architect 

[136] 



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A PLEASING GATE AT FOPvEST HILLS 

Grosvenor Atterbury, Architect 

[137] 



The L i v a b I 



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A GATE OF ORIGINAL DESIGN 

House of Mr. Daniel E. Pomeroy, at Englewood, N e^v 
Jersey. Aymar Embury II, Architect 

[138] 



Its G a y d e n 

The use of a combination of materials, except in the case of 
stone which verv often C(^ntains enough variety in itself to give an 
interesting surface, usually results in a better looking wall than 
one built of a single material. Especially is this true of brick, 
the use of which can easily be overdone. Too much brick gives 
the garden a sombre and oppressive appearance which is simple 
to enliven by a contrast in materials. Cement, slate, marble, flag- 
stone — all these are valuable in this respect, and any one of them 
used in conjunction with brick makes it twice as interesting. 

Sometimes a wood trellis applied to a wall is the means of in- 
creasing its interest. This is the case with the high wall at Anda- 
lusia, Pennsylvania, where the architects have devised a very 
clever and delightful treatment of the garden side of a building 
so high that it would have been painfully stupid without some 
surface treatment. 

A quite different use of wood with masonry is that of the cedar 
poles and stone piers on the Edgar place at Greenwich; and still 
a third sort, a cross between wall and fence, is that in Mrs. Harry 
Payne Whitney's garden, where chestnut pailings between brick 
piers mark the boundary. 

Some such compromise between wall and fence is almost the 
only way in which a wood fence can be made to perform the 
offices of a high wall, because for structural reasons as well as for 
those of good appearance fences do not lend themselves well to 
high treatment. ' . , - 

For lower boundaries wood fences are both useful and attrac- 
tive, and the two sorts in common use in this country may almost 

[139] 



The Livable House 

be called indigenous because of their early prevalence. One is 
the white picket fence found around every New England door- 
yard garden, and the other is the rail fence, which is equally com- 
mon in cou.ntry districts. The first kind still holds all its charm 
for the village type of house, and through some of the Southern 
States it finds a more extended use where it surrounds the house 
garden completely, and divides it from the farm land on which 
cattle are allow^ed to graze. 

There is no more practical and interesting way of marking off 
farm acres to-day than by means of the old rail fence. These 
fences, together with the rough stone walls of early farms, should 
be regarded as traditions given us by our pioneer forefathers, 
worth continuing. On the prairies of the Middle West, hedges 
of buckthorn and osage orange naturally supplant to a great ex- 
tent the customarv boundaries of stony New England — the use of 
all these natural materials is much to be commended, and the 
unpicturesque and no more practical fencing of concrete posts 
with wire between discouraged. 

Fences of wrought iron, and more especially gates of iron, may 
be very beautiful and interesting. They are likely to be formal 
in character, however, and their use in country work is limited 
by this factor as well as by that of their expense. 

Gateways, such as one frequently sees at the entrance to a place, 
which are free standing, and not part of anv wall, should be tied 
into the landscape by heavy planting. Thev have very often a 
lost, unconnected air which is only to be overcome by weighting 
down, so to speak, their extremities with strong planting. This is 

[140] 



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SIMPLE ROSE ARCHES OF VERY 
C;o()D DESIGN 

Garden of Miss Emily Slade al Windsor, 
Vermont, diaries A. Piatt. .Inliiteet 



A GATEWAY AND ARBOR AT 
HAMILTON FARM 

Estate of James Cox Brady, (>ladstone, 
AVic Jersey. Ruth Dean, Ar< liiteet 



true of any free-standing wall or fence. If it does not grow out 
of a building or end against one, its terminations must be con- 
cealed by planting. Such a piece of wall is well taken care of on 
the Schift" place, where evergreens and sturdy shrubs make it part 
of its surroundings. 

The same criticism of loose ends is to be made of a great many 
arbors and pergolas. An arbor should begin at some expected 
and natural place and end in the same way: should lead from one 
spot to another, and not be just set down in the midst of things. 
An interesting arbor is that on the grounds of Mr. Jonathan God- 
frey where the arbor is in effect part of a wall. The beams run 

[142] 



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A WALL PERGOLA WITH VALUABLE 
PLANTING SPACE AT ITS BASE 

Garden of Mr. Jonathan Godfrey, at Bridgeport, Connecticut 

Marian C. Coffin, Landscape Architect; 

F. Burrall Hoffman, Architect 

[143] 



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from a r(3w of columns to piers which are extensions of the wall, 
ami which leave pleasing window-like openings in the upper part 
of the wall. One of the unexpected sources of success in this per- 
gola is the planting space at the foot of the wall; with no room 
left in which to plant a friendly vine the arbor would be without 
half its charm. 

Another good combination of wall and pergola is the pergola 
gate in the rose garden on the Walton estate at St. Davids. Ma- 
terials, as well as good design, are responsible for much of its 
interest; the round columns of stone roughly plastered have a 
pleasant, careless charm which is increased by the use of broken 
flag walks. 

Of all the means whereby walls may be made interesting, prob- 
ably the most effective is the 
wall fountain. There is some- 
thing verv enticing about the 
smallest drip of water with 
green shinv leaves around it, 
and the simplest device in the 
way of a dolphin's head that 
spurts its little stream into a 
shell, catches and holds our 
interest above any other fea- 
ture in the garden. 

A plain wall fountain com- 
bined with a pool is that on the 
Rogers' place at Tuxedo. The 




A FAUN 
J. C. Kraus, Stnupzvorkrr 



[144] 



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A DELIGHTFUL OLD GARDEN HOUSE 

Designed by Samuel Maclntyre in IJQQ on the Osborn 
Estate at Peabody, Massachusetts 

[145] 



The Livable Ho u s e 

pool lies at the foot of a high terrace wall, and is fed through a 
mask by a stream. Here again a strictly architectural feature of 
the garden owes much of its interest, its intimate personal quality 
to the planting about it. A more elaborate wall fountain is that 
at "Brookside," of which Mr. Rondoni is the sculptor. It is de- 
lightful in conception and the figures of the two fauns and the 
mask are very amusing indeed. 

Garden houses, like walls, should conform to the style of archi- 
tecture of the main house, for the garden and whatever pertains 
to it ought to be part of an homogeneous whole; one should 
be able to pass easilv from house to garden and from garden to 
house^ feeling that each belongs to the other; and one of the surest 
ways of accomplishing this spirit of coherence is uniformity of 
design and correlation of material in all the architectural features 
of the garden. Garden architecture, to be sure, need not be so 
dignified as that of the house; it admits of more freedom and play- 
fulness in its treatment than does the more important architecture 
of the house, but the same general style should be adhered to 
throughout. 

The practice of this principle automatically rules out the Japa- 
nese garden transplanted to our Western surroundings; like most 
exotics, its fault is that it fails to fit in our civilization and tradi- 
tions of art, and it must always occupy the position of a curiosity. 
An Eastern garden is full of symbolism which is lost to the un- 
trained Western mind, and it is no more feasible to graft this art 
on our traditions of garden design than it is to introduce Japanese 
manners, costumes, and religion. 

[146] 



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The anomaly of an Italian garden in conjunction with a so- 
called colonial house — or a garden distinctively French in char- 
acter, with a house of easy informal English design — is less 
Hagrant, though equally to be avoided. The best features of al- 
most anv style offer enough good things from which to choose, 
so that one need not be driven to the resources of another style for 
variety. 

Of garden furniture there is very little of stock design which is 
good. Stone workers have done a great deal better for us than 




A tSTAL FIGURE WHICH IS 
VERY PLEASINC; 

E. Lucche?i, Sloneiiorker 




A FINE REPRODTCTION OF 

A NEO-GR(£CQlTE 

PHILOSOPHER 

J. C. Kraus, Stoneiuorker 



[147] 



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wood craftsmen; and the cast stone benches and 
tables which may be obtained offer good adapta- 
tions of classic designs. But there is little wood 
garden furniture, except that done to special de- 
sign, which is even passable. 

Good garden figures are almost as scarce as 
good wooden furniture; but occasionally one 
finds something that it not the stereotyped "boy 
with fish/' or Hebe, or Diana. 
Cast iron reindeer gave us a 
great set-back in our appreci- 
ation of garden ornaments; 
for many people, still under 
the influence of the very 

Wfj^ ^H proper reaction against this 

Pim^ ^^^^B sort of garden "adornment,'' 
refuse to have any "statuary" 
at all abcnit their grounds. 
This is unfortunate, because 
there is no d(^ubt about the 

fact that a few figures carefully chosen con- 
tribute a lot of interest and life to the garden. 

It is pleasant to come on a faun laughing out 

of the leaves at one, or the wise old smile of a 

philosopher, or the pagan grin of a grotesque. 

And amusing in much the same way are the 

lead figures used so often in English gardens; 

[148] 



A GOOD TERMI 

NAL FIGURE 

FOR PATH 




ANOTHER TER- 
MINAL FIGURE 
FOR PATH 



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A FRUIT BASKET FOR A 
GARDEN GATE POST 

J. C. Kraus, Stonezaorker 



shepherds and shepherdesses, amorini and 
grotesques. Lead is a very agreeable ma- 
terial for garden figures, and it is regret- 
table that no one is manutacturino: them in 
this country to-day. A tew dealers import 
lead work from England, and now and then 
an old figure strays into the country, but for 
the most part the use of this material for 
garden work is very limited. 
Good sun-dials of the "made in America" kind are also few and 
far between. For the most part our stock sun-dials consist of 
Doric columns of yery doubtful proportions, or of a single heayy 
baluster supporting a plaeque on which the dial face rests. Very 
little ingenuity and good taste seems to haye been exercised in 
their designs, and — I admit it reluctantly — we haye almost no 
dials to compare in interest with hundreds to be found in England. 
I am not going to excuse the scarcity of good design in garden 
furniture and accessories on the basis of the youth of this country, 
or its hustling interest in business, or its lack of a leisure class. 
These are the customary and time-worn excuses for almost eyery 
artistic defect we possess. We haye the best architects in the 
world to-day, and we haye able manufacturers and good designers 
of furniture for interiors. Among the three we ought to produce 
garden furniture which is as good in design as that of any other 
country, and which will be a real factor in making the gardens 
livable. 



[150] 



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A W ALL O !■ K i'. r' V :\ KD DESIGN 

Garden of Mrs. E. S. Clark, Pomfret, Couuccticut 
Charles A. Piatt, Architect 

[158] 



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A GATE POST OF SI M PLE DIGNIFIED 

DESIGN 

Estate of Mr. Willard Straight, at Westbury, Long Island 
A. F. Brinckerhoff, Landscape Architect 

[159] 



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A CLEVER TRELLIS TREAT M E N T 
OF A HIGH WALL 

In the garden of Mr. Charles Biddle, at Andalusia, 
Pennsylvania. Mellor and Meigs, Architects 

[i6o] 



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A A UNUSUALLY GOOD BIT OF 
"RUSTIC WORK" 

Garden of Mrs. J. Clifton Edgar, at Greenwich, Connecticut 
Marian C. Coffin, Landscape Architect 

[i6i] 



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A FENCE OF CHESTNUT PALINGS 
BETWEEN BRICK PIERS 

Garden of Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney, Westbury, Lcng 
Island. Delano and Aldrich, Architects 



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THE WHITE PICKET FENCE OF A 
DOOR-YARD GARDEN 

House of Mrs. Harrison Sanford, at Litchfield, Connecticut 
Restored by Mr. Aymar Embury II, Architect 

[163] 



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[165] 



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[i66] 



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GAZEBO OF THE ROYALL HOUSE 

At Medford, Massachusetts 

[167] 



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AN AMUSING WALL FOUNTAIN 

Jt "Brookside." Estate of Mr. William Hall Walker, Great 

Barrington, Massachusetts. Ferrucio Vitale, 

Landscape Architect 

[i68] 



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A WALL FOUNTAIN COMBINED 
WITH A POOL 

Garden of Mr. H. H. Rogers, at Tuxedo, New York 
Walker and Gillette, Architects 

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A GARDEN ENTRANCE FOR WHOSE 
CHAR M AGE IS RESPONSIBLE 

House at (So Federal Street, Salem, Massachusetts 
Samuel Mclntyre, Architect, 1782 
[170] 



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[171] 



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A W^ R O U G H T IRON LA N 1 E R N 
AN D BRACKET 

At Forest Hills Gardens, Forest Hills, Long Island 
Grosvenor Atterbury, Designer 

[172] 



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TWO BENCHES OF INTERESTING 

DESIGN BACKED UP BY 

TRELLIS 

Ralph Adams Cram, Architect 

[173] 



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A REPRODUCTION OF AN OLD 

REN AI SS AN CE URN 

Jt Hamilton Farm. Gladstone, Neic Jersey. Ruth Dean, 
Landscape Architect; J. C. Kraus, Stoneworker 

[174] 



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